top of page

Banksy

 

Banksy is the artistic name of an English graffiti artist that is perhaps the most well-known and famous one in the world. Apart from this he’s also a political activist, film director, and painter, and is famous as well for his ability to hide his true identity (since he does satirical murals, which usually have political and social critics). Though his identity has not been proven it is believed that his name is Robin Gunningham, nevertheless some other theories suggest that he is a woman or actually a team of artists. His satirical street art combines dark humour with graffiti, and Banksy skilful use of stencils makes his work easy to recognize. He has become a international artist, making images in unexpected international places like for example the wall that has been constructed between Israel and the Palestinian West Bank. His most distinguishable works are in London and other English cities like Bristol, which is believed to be his homeland. His stencils have also appeared in United States cities such as Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. Many people say that his style is similar to Blek le Rat, who worked with stencils in 1981 in Paris but Banksy says that he was actually inspired by the graffiti artist  “3D”. Banksy's graffiti is so recognized that if his pieces were sold they could add up to half a million dollars, and some people have even removed walls where he has painted in so that they could sell them. Banksy himself has sold his work at gallery shows though he does that through an agent to protect his anonymity.

 

Robbo

 

Commonly known as King Robbo, was an English underground graffiti artist. His real name was John Robertson; he was born the 23 October 1969 and died the past 31 July 2014. King Robbo started tagging trains in London during the 1980s after the practice became popular in New York, though he became less active in the 90s. Although he was considered to be one of the founding fathers of London’s graffiti, he received even wider attention in 2010 when he was involved in a dispute with the extremely famous street artist Banksy. His feud with the artist Banksy was even discussed in a channel-4 television documentary called Graffiti Wars, first shown in August 2011.

 

 

 

Graffiti wars

 

This documentary called “Graffiti wars” talks a lot about the entire dispute that occurred some years ago between the two famous graffiti artists, Banksy and Robbo. The documentary starts giving us some background information about Robbo, and the importance he had some decades ago when he was a respected tagger. However he then retired and as time passed all his graffiti were removed and only one piece of his art was left, painted in 1985 underneath the British transport police headquarters (which became the oldest piece of graffiti in London). In 2009 however, the English stencil artist Banksy covered most of Robbo’s graffiti with a stencil of a workman pasting wallpaper. In graffiti culture this act was something unacceptable, since no artist cant paint over the work of another, which made Robbo extremely mad. On 2009 Robbo then took revenge on Banksy's piece by covering the work so that the workman seemed to be painting "King Robbo" in silver letters. However three days later the letters “Fuc” appeared before the “King”. A feud started between these two and they started ridiculing each other’s Works. This continued with more and more insults including a picture of top cat leaning on a gravestone that said "R.I.P. Banksy's career". Some people supported Robbo, while others supported Banksy. The war “ended” when on 2 April 2011 King Robbo has a life-threatening head injury and fell into a coma, causing his death on 31 July 2014 when he was 44.

 

 

 

ATL skills:

  • Break down large concepts and projects into component parts and combine parts logically as appropriate.

  • Consider opposites to renew perspectives.

  • Make connections between learning gained in different subject areas.

  • Structure information appropriately in in written oral and visual work

  • Find and select information via different media.

  • Consider personal relationships to people, ideas and concepts.

Bibliography:

 

David Choe

 

David Choe was born on April 21, 1976 and is an American figure painter, muralist and graffiti artist. The Artist David could be considered to be at the opposite side of the spectrum from Banksy. This muralist is famous for being paid in company stock after painting a mural at Facebook's headquarters (he then sold the stock and became rich). Choe has also done works for film sets and album covers, apart from painting the now famous portrait of Barack Obama at his first presidential campaign. His graffiti and murals are distributed around LA, but can also be found in places as far away as Japan, England and France. David's more elaborated murals use multiple layers and colourful shading and explore themes of “desire”, they have a wild inclination that he has called "dirty style". In the graffiti world, he is identified with a bucktoothed whale that he has spray-painted on the streets since he was a teenager.

 

Blek le Rat (Xavier Prou)

 

Xavier Prou known as Blek le Rat was one of the first graffiti artists in Paris, and is acknowledged to be the father of stencil graffiti. This well-known Parisian graffiti artist has been even used as an inspiration by some of the most legendary artists in the world, including Banksy. His artistic name comes from the rat images that he painted all around Paris early in his career, since began his artwork in 1981, painting stencils of rats on the walls of streets. He used "rat" as an anagram for "art” and described the animal as "the only free animal in the city" and one that "spreads the plague everywhere, just like street art”. Blek is another successful street artist who has luckily had a good relationship with galleries and museums. Besides publishing books featuring his artwork. Furthermore, despite his success Prou is still active in graffiti and his recent works can be seen in the streets of London, Paris, Berlin and New York City.

 

 

Blek and Banksy

 

Banksy himself has recognised the influence Beck has had stating, "every time I think I've painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek Le Rat has done it as well, only twenty years earlier." The two of them have expressed mutual desire for working and initially Blek disagreed with those who said Banksy has copied his work. The artist even said, "People say he copies me, but I don't think so. I'm the old man, he's the new kid, and if I'm an inspiration to an artist that good, I love it. I feel what he is doing in London is similar to the rock movement in the Sixties.” However, more recently in the documentary Graffiti Wars, Blek had change his attitude expressing, "When I see Banksy making a man with a child or Banksy making rats, of course I see immediately where he takes the idea. I do feel angry. When you're an artist you use your own techniques. It's difficult to find a technique and style in art so when you have a style and you see someone else is taking it and reproducing it, you don't like that. I'm not sure about his integrity. Maybe he has to show his face now and show what kind of guy he is”.

 

 

Retna (Marquis Lewis)

 

Retna is a contemporary artist famous for his graffiti art, his name is Marquis Lewis and was born in 1979 in Los Angeles. He was also raised in LA and here is where his career started, during the early 90s. Retna is famous for creating an impressive collection of murals characterized by exotic writing that brings to mind hieroglyphics, Asian, Arabic and Hebrew calligraphy apart of other types of both, classical lettering and more traditional types of street graffiti. He often puts his unique inscriptions and colourful patterns around realistic portraits to create distinctive murals. His work can be seen around Los Angeles and in cities from New York and Miami to Taipei and Hong Kong. Retna has also enjoyed plenty of success selling his works to celebrities like Usher creating works for successful gallery shows, and doing advertising work for brands such like Nike and Louis Vuitton.

 

 

 

 

 

Eduardo Kobra

 

The Brazilian muralist Eduardo Kobra has done some of the most remarkable works of public art in current times. He is known for creating large-scale colourful murals filled with multi-coloured designs that get the eye’s attention. His big impressive murals can be seen on buildings and walls all over Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is his hometown. Kobra's style is so particular because of the colourful patterns, textures, lines, shading, and details in his paintings. His extremely realistic murals are representations of eras of the past; they bring to life historical figures and have the ability to take individuals into these older times For this he also uses darker colour palettes in some of his works, or also gets inspired by vintage photographs that create a feeling of nostalgia for people who see it.  The size and location of these murals generates the sensation of going through an artistic rainbow and be standing on a different place and time. Moreover, Kobra also creates exceptional 3D chalk pictures that (when viewed from the right angle) seem to appear from the sidewalk or street where they were created. The complete control of these different styles makes Kobra one of the most well rounded street artists worldwide.

 

 

.jpg_srz_p_548_548_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.jpg

.jpg_srz_p_548_548_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.jpg

ATL skills:

  • Consider ideas from other perspectives and points of view.

  • Inquire in different contexts to gain a diverse perspective.

  • Change the context of your project to gain different perspectives.

  • Use different information organizers for different purposes.

  • Find information in different media

  • Collect and verify data

Bibliography:

By: Alberto José Otero - Personal Project 2015

bottom of page