Banksy

This is a post I planned to do around the time I was doing the spray paints of the birds and the cars, but never quite got round to it, so just imagine it was posted then!

Banksy’s street art is probably some of the world’s most well known work, although at the same time no one really knows exactly who he is or much about him at all. His work is generally satirically humorous, but also conveys a message or meaning – often a political or social one. Recurring subjects in his work include rats, apes, policeman, soldiers, children and the elderly. Ever since first seeing Banksy’s work I’ve had an interest in it and the more I research it and the more images I find online of his the more I want to know. A few years back I painted a copy of one of Banksy’s pieces of work and then did my own painting inspired by it, but I have always wanted to explore his work further and to also do some spray painting of my own.

Originally Banksy would do his spray painting free hand but then went on to realise it would be much quicker to use stencils and would lessen his chances of getting caught. The spray painting work I have done is also all with stencils, but this is mainly because for my first time spray painting it wouldn’t be a good idea to try and do it free hand. A lot of his work just uses the colours black and white with the incorporation of just one other brighter colour, such as red, meaning I have used a similar colour palette to him.  I am impressed by the way in which he successfully manages to create such detailed and realistic artwork using just black and white and this is something I have tried to do in my own spray paintings. By focusing on the darker shades in my car drawing and using them to create a stencil, I feel as though I have managed to create a car spray painting in a similar to style to Banksy’s, although obviously not to the same standard. I originally planned to spray paint both areas of black and white and I think this would be a way to improve my spray painting and could be something to explore in the next stages of this project. As well as this I could try and find a way or incorporating a small amount of red into this image to make it more related to Banksy’s work. My stencils were made by cutting sections out of a page from my sketchbook and Banksy’s are most likely done with acetate and cut out by a computer so I think if I had the same resources I would be able to create a sharper spray paint.

One of the prominent themes throughout Banksy’s work is that of the environment and global warming. Coincidentally, my two spray paintings both relate to that: the car in the sense that it is creating the pollution and a large part of the page is taken up by the engine fumes from the car which are air pollution, and the birds because they would be affected by air pollution and global warming and they are part of nature. 

Below I've included some of Banksy's work that I particularly like.