Banksy has confirmed that he is indeed the author of a number of works that have appeared recently in seaside towns on the UK east coast.
An Instagram video clip, just over three minutes long called “A Great British Spraycation”, shows the elusive artist taking a summer road trip in a beaten-up camper van with cans of spray paint stashed inside a cooler.
The video shows the artist, his identity suitably hidden, working on the murals, and includes the occasional critique from passers-by.
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In one work on the concrete sea-defence wall of a British beach, a rat lounges in a deckchair, sipping a cocktail. In another, sticking to the seaside theme, a mechanical claw dangles above a public bench – as if anyone who sits there is about to be plucked up like a prize in an arcade game.
Another shows a giant seagull hovering above a skip full of oversized “chips”. A fourth shows three children in a rickety boat. One looks ahead while another is busy bailing out water with a bucket. Above them, appears the inscription: “We’re all in the same boat.”
On the roof of a bus shelter, a couple also dance to the tune of a flat-capped accordion player, in a black and white painting evoking the faded, down-at-heel feel of many of the country’s once-prosperous seaside resorts.
Speculation that Banksy was behind the works emerged after pieces bearing his hallmark were spotted in Lowestoft in Suffolk, and Gorleston and Great Yarmouth in Norfolk.
In recent years, the Bristol artist, who has maintained the mystery of his identity, has held the attention of the contemporary art world with his social commentaries and causes – migrants, opposition to Brexit, denunciation of Islamist radicals – as well as stirring the excitement of the moneyed art markets.
In March, Banksy raised £16.7m – a world auction record for the artist – for health projects with the auction of a painting depicting a child playing with a toy nurse, instead of the Batman or Spider-Man toys peeking out of a basket.
The painting, titled Game Changer, was donated to Southampton hospital during the first wave of the pandemic.
In March, groups in Reading expressed “huge disappointment” after a mural by Banksy on the side of a former prison was defaced with red paint and the phrase “Team Robbo”, probably a reference to the graffiti artist King Robbo, who was in a long-running rivalry with Banksy before his death in 2014.
The artwork, entitled Create Escape, appeared on the red brick wall of Reading prison on 1 March and showed an inmate escaping lockdown using a knotted spool of paper from a typewriter.
With Agence France-Presse