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Where Can I Find Banksy?

We examine the evidence and make some suggestions as to the identity of the elusive graffiti artist

By Simon WPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
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Where Can I Find Banksy?
Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

The infamous graffiti artist that goes under the name of Banksy is both well known and entirely unknown to the art lovers of the world. In fact, he is known beyond the art world, especially with his love of social commentary and amusing murals.

Rumours on a regular basis swirl on the street art discussion forums concerning Banksy's real identity and also where he's from.

I think it's probably safe to think that Banksy is from the Bristol area. Bristol is a medium sized city in the south west of England, where, a lot of Banksy's early work has actually shown up on the city's streets, neighboring Cheddar Gorge as well as he likewise hosted his significant exterior exhibit Dismaland down the road in Weston-Super-Mare.

Now a world renowned artist with an international credibility, Banksy has actually somehow taken extreme care to maintain his identification as completely secret, although there are a lot of art lovers in agreement over a couple of names of that he is most likely to be.

Starting out on the graffiti scene in the early 90s, he is claimed to have been inspired by the famous musician and artist 3D (also known as Robert del Naja), who likewise happens to be one of the founding members of the band Masssive Attack. There have actually been relentless rumours that Robert del Naja is actually Banksy, yet there isn't much proof to sustain this theory aside from concert dates which periodically compare with new works by Banksy.

Banksy has actually commonly been assumed to be a young man called Robin Gunningham that schooled close to Bristol and afterwards in the mid 1990s moved to London.

The timings of his life in Bristol and also London would additionally correspond rather very closely with new activity in both cities.

Gold toothed music star Goldie once described Banksy as 'Rob' in an interview as soon as which provides further credence to the concept that Gunnigham could be the mysterious artist.

School friends of Gunningham have verified that he went under an unusual and similar moniker throughout his very early graffiti tasks, as well as like a lot of college time labels, it's simple to see just how Robin Banks might have wound up as Banksy later in life.

The first known piece of large street art by Banksy popped up in 1997, featuring a teddy bear throwing a bomb at police officers.

Nowadays, Banksy's works are usually viewed as instant millionaire pieces, with property owners quickly installing protective perspex coverings over the artworks in efforts to maintain them and their value.

Unfortunately, taggers or 'competing' artists occasionally get to the art work before it can be protected, often losing it entirely in less than a week.

Banky's total value of assets is rumoured to around $50 million, which boggles the mind when you think about a graffiti artist painting on walls around his city.

Banksy has actually gifted several famous items to Melbourne, consisting of the famous Little Scuba diver item near the police station on Flinders Lane. Sadly Little Diver was damaged with a tin of paint in 2008, but did have an excellent innings, having been first painted in 2003. That's 5 years longer than the majority of Banksy's items last in London or LA!

To protect his privacy, he gives extremely few interviews, although in one with The Guardian in 2003, he is described as being white, 28, and shabby casual. Much as you’d expect really.

In the 2010 documentary Exit Via The Gift Shop, Banksy is talked to, although we gather very little new information regarding his or her identity. This could likewise have actually been some smart trickery on behalf of the artist, as there has been alot of discussion over the truth that Banksy may in fact be a collective of musicians rather than a person. Perhaps speaking with a skinny white male in his 30s, with shadows over their face making them indistinguishable and also a disguised voice offered the audience what they anticipated to see as opposed to revealing anything new or offering any fresh clues as to their true identity. Perhaps it was just another chance for Banksy to keep us off the scent as well as keep us guessing?

Although Banksy's jobs have appeared all around the world, including Bethlehem, LA, Utah as well as Paris and also main exhibitions have been kept in New York and also LA, it seems that London is possibly his main home from the information we can collect with brand-new pieces normally found in the southerly part of the UK.

With graffiti being largely prohibited, it's reasonable why Banksy might intend to hide his actual name and remain discreet, but to those people that are interested, we're intrigued to understand his true identification and ask him a million questions about his art and motivations. I guess for now, we’ll just have to keep guessing and keeping an eye on the street art around Melbourne’s laneways.

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About the Creator

Simon W

A Melbourne photographer with a love of events, Australia, dogs and photography.

www.manwithacamera.com.au

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