![]() ![]() Rats have become one of Banksy’s most prolific motifs, they take on many personas in his work: a doorman, an anarchist, and a protester among many others. To learn more about Banksy's rats, see our guide here. In Wall and Piece, Banksy said: “Every time I think I've painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek le Rat has done it as well, only 20 years earlier”. Motivated by social consciousness, Blek le Rat chose to paint rats because they were ‘the only free animal in the city’. Blek le Rat's spray-painted stencils of rats first appeared in Paris on the banks of the Seine, at the same time Banksy would have been drawing his own first sketches as a child. The artist also reproduced Gangsta Rat as a mural in Farringdon in 2004, in Old Street in 2006 and in New York City in 2013 on the occasion of the artist’s painting residency: Better Out Than In.īanksy's appreciation for rats is often attributed to French stencil artist Blek le Rat, also known as Xavier Prou, who is regarded as the ‘father of stencil graffiti’ and initiated urban art in France in the 1980s. These were limited to 46 pink, 8 mint green, 20 green, 61 orange, 61 blue and 61 grey for special VIP collectors for Dismaland in Weston-super-Mare. In 2015, the artist re-released some rare colourways. The rat appears to have tagged ‘iPow’ on the wall behind him in spray paint, an ironic commentary on the ubiquity of Apple products while POW is a reference to the artist's print publisher: Pictures on Walls.īanksy initially released Gangsta Rat in the red colourway with 150 signed prints and 350 unsigned prints. ![]() The character portrayed is reminiscent of the New York underground style, popular in the UK in the 1980s and 90s. Banksy’s Gangsta Rat, first editioned in 2004, features one of his most frequently employed and easily recognisable motifs.Ĭombining spray-paint and monochrome stencilling techniques, this Bansky print depicts a black and white rat wearing a New York Mets baseball cap, a chain necklace, and carrying a ghetto blaster. ![]()
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