, political activist, film director, and painter.
His satirical street art
and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti
done in a distinctive stencil
ling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.
Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene
which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.
Art is not like other culture because its success is not made by its audience. The public fill concert halls and cinemas every day, we read novels by the millions, and buy records by the billions. We the people, affect the making and quality of most of our culture, but not our art.
The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires...
I'd been painting rats for three years before someone said "that's a clever anagram of art" and I had to pretend I'd known that all along.
People who enjoy waving flags don't deserve to have one.
Become good at cheating and you never need to become good at anything else.
'I got home at last and crawled into bed next to my girlfriend. I told her I'd had an wiktionary:epiphany|epiphany that night [about using stencils] and she told me to stop taking that drug 'cos it's bad for your heart.'
T.V. has made going to the theatre seem pointless, photography has pretty much killed painting but graffiti has remained gloriously unspoilt by progress.
People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish. But that's only if it's done properly.
You know what hip-hop has done with the word 'nigger' - I'm trying to do that with the word vandalism, bring it back.
The Holy Grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.