|
Graffiti Art by English Freehand Artist Banksy
 Banksy is a pseudonymous England based graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter. His satirical street
art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humor with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such
artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout
the world.
Banksy began as a freehand graffiti artist in 1992–1994 as
one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), with Kato and Tes. He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger
Bristol underground scene. From the start he used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too. By 2000 he had turned
to the art of stencilling after realizing how much less time it took to complete a piece. He claims he changed to stencilling
whilst he was hiding from the police under a rubbish lorry, when he noticed the stencilled serial number and by employing
this technique, he soon became more widely noticed for his art around Bristol and London.
 Banksy's stencils
feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist
or anti-establishment. Subjects often include rats, apes, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly. By the end of
2001 Banksy published his first book "Banksy, Pictures of Walls".
After Christina Aguilera
bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two prints for £25,000, on 19 October 2006 a set of Kate Moss
paintings sold in Sotheby's London for £50,400, setting an auction record for Banksy's work. The six silk-screen prints,
featuring the model painted in the style of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe pictures, sold for five times their estimated value.
His stencil of a green Mona Lisa with real paint dripping from her eyes sold for £57,600 at the same auction. In December,
journalist Max Foster coined the phrase, "the Banksy effect," to illustrate how interest in other street artists
was growing on the back of Banksy's success.
In late August 2008, marking the third anniversary of
Hurricane Katrina and the associated levee failure disaster, Banksy produced a series of works in New Orleans, Louisiana,
mostly on buildings derelict since the disaster. A stencil painting attributed to Banksy appeared at a vacant petrol station
in the Ensley neighbourhood of Birmingham, Alabama on 29 August as Hurricane Gustav approached the New Orleans area. The
painting depicting a hooded member of the Ku Klux Klan hanging from a noose was quickly covered with black spray paint and
later removed altogether. His first official exhibition in New York, the "Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill,"
opened 5 October 2008. The animatronic pets in the store window include a mother hen watching over her baby Chicken McNuggets
as they peck at a barbecue sauce packet, and a rabbit putting makeup on in a mirror.
|
