Amber Remaley- Visual Cultural Paper

Banksy- Graffiti Artist

Banksy, an iconic anonymous English graffiti artist; who has no true identity. Many people believe his real name is Robert Banks that might have been born in 1974 or 1975. One person interviewed him once and describes him wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a silver tooth, chain, and earring. Others claim that they sighted Banksy around London. One thing is for sure that Banksy identity is though his creative street art.

In the late 1980’s when graffiti art was on its high, Banksy learned how to spray paint as a free hand graffiti artist. He was in a graffiti crew, which they would tag walls in underground trains. In 2000 Banksy started to use stencils for his artwork which speeded up the process. The usage of stencils helped him complete larger works of art, which also helped to make him well known in Bristol and London.
Many of Banksy’s pieces deal with anti-war, anti-capitalism, and pro-freedom. His artwork is modern pop art with a sense of humor and corkiness. Banksy’s spray paint images are mostly rats, monkeys, children, policemen, celebrities, and soldiers. Besides images he also like to add words and slogans to his artwork like once in the Bristol Zoo, Banksy wrote a elephant enclosure that read,” I want out, this place is too cold, keeper smells, boring, boring, boring.”

There are many gift shops that stores sell shirts, coffee mugs, and posters of reproducts of Banksy’s work, but Banksy has nothing to do with that and does not receive any of the commission. When it comes to selling his artwork, he holds auctions were he sells prints of pieces Christina Aguilera once bought a piece of Queen Victoria as a lesbian for 25,000 pounds. In 2006 in a London auction a pair of two Kate Moss paintings in an Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe style went for 50,400 pounds. His highest record for a sold piece was in 2007 that was Space Girl & Bird that sold for 288,000 pounds.

In late 2006 Banksy pulled off quite a prank. Paris Hilton debut her cd called Paris, which Banksy bought and replaced up to five hundred copies into dozens of different record stores around the UK. The new cds had been replace with Banksy’s artwork, some used photo shop and made her appear topless, while some others replaced her head with her own Chihuahua’s head. Not only did he replace the cd covers but he also made different remixes of the songs with dj Danger Mouse which some were titled, “Why Am I Famous?”, “What Have I Done?”, and “What Am I For?”. Later recorded store realized and took the copies off the shelves, when some people bought them and later sold them on e-bay.

In 2007 some happened that no thought would happened, Banksy himself painted over one of his graffiti pieces. In the beginning of 2007, 19 year old graffiti artist Ozone was hit and killed by an underground train. In tribute to his friend Banksy painted over his Pulp Fiction piece of Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta in banana costumes holding guns, to an angel wearing a bulletproof vest while holding a skull.

Even though Banksy himself once painted over his artwork, many other people wanted to paint over his pieces. Since Banksy paints on many buildings around London, owners of the buildings and people of the city and offend by some pieces of artwork. One of my favorite piece called Naked Man, is an image of a nude man hanging for dear life out of a window ledge while a angry suspicious husbands peers out the window looking for a man he thinking his wife has been cheating with while his half clothed wife behind him grabbing his shoulder. This image was painted on a sexual health clinic building, which they were fighting to get in removed. Since the painting is so popular the City Council later decided to let it remain on the building.

Banksy is not only one of my favorite modern artist, but his playful images and his mysterious identity also plays a part why I enjoy his work. I love his pop art style and the way he uses stencils to create a screen print look. I would love to incorporate some type of spray paint or air brush technique into my project pieces. I also want to work with a black and white theme with just a touch of color, which many of Banksy pieces have. One thing that sets me far apart form Banksy is the fact that he’s an anonymous artist. When I complete a master piece of artwork, I want the whole world to know that I’ve done it. If I was a graffiti artist like Banksy, every image on a building I would tag under it “Amber Remaley sooo did this”. Being an anonymous artist would never work for me, but it sure works for Banksy’s artwork and image.




Bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy
http://www.banksy.co.uk/shop/index.html
http://www.bankrobberlondon.com/#/banksy/
http://www.banksy.us/