Artist Series – Banksy

Here is my second part to my ongoing series on artist in different mediums.  I will try to feature artist that I find to have influenced my career in the arts.  I have gone in a different direction this time from my previous edition which feature one of the most respected American photographers, Ansel Adams.  This time I will be featuring one of the most notorious street artists currently working in the UK and around the world, Banksy.

“ I use whatever it takes. Sometimes that just means drawing a moustache on a girl’s face on some billboard, sometimes that means sweating for days over an intricate drawing. Efficiency is the key.” -  Banksy

Banksy (born 1974 or 1975?) is a pseudonym for a British graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol, England. His real name has been widely reported to be Robert or Robin Banks.  However, there is substantial public uncertainty about his identity and biographical details.It is believed that he is the son of a photocopier technician.  He trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the aerosol boom of the late 1980s.

His artworks are often satirical pieces of art on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics. His street art combines graffiti writing with a distinctive stenciling technique. His art is not limited to the UK, but has appeared in cities around the world.

The mystery behind his identity only makes Banksy more of a legend as his art pieces usually appear over-night with no warning.

“I am unable to comment on who may or may not be Banksy, but anyone described as being ‘good at drawing’ doesn’t sound like Banksy to me.” -  Banksy

Banksy started as a freehand graffiti artist 1992–1994. He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger Bristol underground scene (characterized by a strong relationship between music and art, especially graffiti art).

From the start he used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too.  By 2000 he had turned to the art of stenciling after realizing how much less time it took to complete a “piece.“  He claims he changed to stenciling whilst he was hiding from the police under a train carriage, when he noticed the stenciled serial number.

Banksy’s stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans.  The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment.  Subjects include rats, monkeys, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.

Technique

Stencils are traditionally hand drawn or printed onto sheets of acetate or card, before being cut out by hand. Because of the secretive nature of Banksy’s work, it is uncertain what techniques he uses to generate the images.  It is assumed he uses computers for some images due to the photocopy nature of much of his work.

He mentions in his book, ‘Wall and Piece’, that as he was starting to do graffiti that he was always too slow and was either caught or could never finish the art in the one sitting. So he devised a series of intricate stencils to minimize time and overlapping of the colour.

How to get your art shown

In 2004, Banksy walked into the Louvre in Paris and hung on a wall a picture he had painted resembling the Mona Lisa but with a yellow smiley face.

Though the painting was hurriedly removed by the museum staff, it and its counterpart, temporarily on unknown display at the Tate Britain, were described by Banksy as ‘shortcuts’.

Banksy then went on to achieve a sort of ‘art world quadruple crown’ when he snuck his works into four New York City museums – the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Brooklyn Museum – all in one day.

Notable Art

One of his most notorious work is probably a “cave painting” entitled “Early Man Goes To Market”, that he hung up in British Museum’s Gallery 49 (alongside finds from Roman Britain) accompanied by a few sentences of explanatory text.

Apparently, no one noticed the scam until Banksy announced his deed on the web.  Even then the museum’s staff appear to have appreciated the joke, since the piece remains on display as part of their collection.

“To actually go through the process of having a painting selected must be quite boring. It’s a lot more fun to go and put your own one up.” -  Banksy

Banksy achieved a sort of art world quadruple crown when he snuck his works into four New York City museums – the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Brooklyn Museum – in a single day.

Such feats have earned him worldwide media attention and the kind of rewards traditional artists would kill for, including an offer from Nike to work on an ad campaign (he declined) and an invitation to do a public painting for the 2004 Liverpool biennial (he accepted).

He once painted a thought bubble on the wall of the elephant pen at the London Zoo: “I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring, boring, boring.”

The difficulty of that job gained the respect of the graffiti community but, more than that, it caught the imagination of the public, which was happy to empathize with the elephants.

In June 2006, Banksy created an image of a naked man hanging out of a bedroom window on a wall visible from Park Street in central Bristol.

The image sparked some controversy, with the Bristol City Council leaving it up to the public to decide whether it should stay or go.  After an internet discussion in which 97% (all but 6 people) supported the stencil, the city council decided it would be left on the building. The mural was later defaced with paint.

In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton’s debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as “Why am I Famous?”, “What Have I Done?” and “What Am I For?”. Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on eBay.

In August 2005, Banksy painted nine images on the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder going up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wall.

“Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.” -  Banksy