Banksy 

Banksy is an British graffiti artist whose identity has not been discovered yet. It is said that Banksy could be Robin Gunninham, a former public schoolboy at Bristol Cathedral Choir School. 

Banksy's work has been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world. His work has also been said (by observers) to be similar to Blek le Rat, who started his work with stencils during 1981 in Paris. Banksy claims that he was inspired by "3D" who is another graffiti artist. 

Banksy was awarded person of the year at the 2014 Webby Awards. 

Banksy initially began as a freehand graffiti artist but then over time realised that using stencil took less time. Banksy's works feature shocking, humorous, contradicting images which are occasionally combined with slogans. 


In my opinion, this image (image on the left) portrays humour and contradiction because hte words behind the figure says " NO LOiTERiNG" yet the old man has decided to go against the words and further goes against the words by sitting in a rocking chair which in my opinion is usually seen to be a chair that old people tend to sit on for long periods of time. 

This image (image on the right) shows a naked man hanging out of the window, a woman and a man on the other side of the window, the woman is wearing just her underwear and her bra with a body posture which suggests that she has done something wrong and she knows it, whilst the man is looking out of the window with a gesture to suggest that he is looking very hard for something or someone. This image by Banksy is on the wall of a sexual health clinic which inputs humor whilst maintaining the seriousness of the situation and this is done by the image showing that the woman has clearly cheated on her husband and this could be a way that STD's are transmitted but the man hanging out of the window with no clothes on adds an element of humor to the image because he clearly has nowhere to hide and had no time to put any clothes on thus leaving him hanging outside the window as a last option.

Although Banksy is clearly talented at what he does, his work that aims towards political and social themes is clear due to the fact that it is said that his work have included anti-war, anti-consumerism, anti- anti- fascism, anti- imperialism, anti-authoritarianism, anarchism, nihilism, and existentialism, also, his work also critiques human conditions such as greed, poverty, hypocrisy, boredom, despair, absurdity, and alienation. 

One of the components of the human condition that i feel Banksy captures perfectly through his art work is the image on the left. This image shows a man wearing a hat, gloves with holes, sitting on the floor with a blanket over his knees with a cup in front of him which suggests he would like some money or "change" and a sign in his hand and this suggests to us that his person is homeless. The sign in the persons hands say, "KEEP YOUR COINS, I WANT CHANGE", in my opinion, the play on words is extremely clever and gives a clear and powerful message because if the sign was to only say "I WANT CHANGE" this would suggest that the homeless man wanted coins, now, because the sign starts with "KEEP YOUR COINS" we automatically exclude the fact that the homeless man would want coins and see the bigger picture which is that what the homeless man is really asking for which is change in the world.