FLuX (John Malloy) is a contemporary artist and author whose work explores the intersection of illusion, ornament, and contemporary visual culture. He is the creator of Trompe Nouveau, a painting approach that merges the hyperreal strategies of trompe-l’oeil with the flowing decorative structures of Art Nouveau. Through this synthesis, familiar objects and imagery are transformed into heightened visual experiences that blur the boundary between two-dimensional surface and three-dimensional space.
Working in both traditional oil painting and meticulously hand-rendered digital processes, FLuX constructs images where vivid geometry and precise realism coexist. This hybrid practice allows his work to move fluidly between physical paintings and large-scale digital compositions while maintaining the same emphasis on craft, illusion, and visual clarity.
Born in Pennsylvania and raised in a working-class household, FLuX began drawing and writing at an early age in his family’s small home. That early fascination with images and storytelling evolved into a multidisciplinary practice spanning painting, illustration, writing, and comics.
His work has been exhibited internationally and appears in private collections, museums, and galleries worldwide. He has collaborated on special projects with organizations including Apple, Swatch, Focus Features, Paramount+, FX, Puma, Diesel, and Peace Tea. His graphic-novel work includes Good: From the Amazon Jungle to Suburbia & Back, the web comic memoir Queasy, and interview comics for Lemon Magazine.
FLuX’s work has received recognition from organizations including the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize, Creativity International, Communication Arts, AI/AP, Infected by Art, and the Society of Illustrators, and has been featured in publications such as Gestalten’s Illusive, The Big Book of Illustration, and Spectrum.