When the paintings started appearing, people immediately started speculating if the street art belonged to the enigmatic contemporary artist Banksy, who is known all around the world for his satirical and dark-humored topics.
Even though people are very familiar with his distinctive stenciling technique, they still were not convinced who was the author of the new paintings until the artist himself posted a video on his Instagram account showing the process of creating the new art.
From the video, we get to know the theme of the painting series, which is “A great British spraycation.” Banksy shows that he traveled in a camper with all his paints and spiced up some of the streets in coastal cities in England.
The places Banksy visited are in Great Yarmouth, Gorleston and Cromer, Norfolk, Lowestoft and Oulton Broad in Suffolk.
You can hear a woman in the video say that what Banksy has done is mindless vandalism and there are other people who think like that. Because the art is out in public, on the walls of various buildings, and it often is integrated into the surroundings, it tends to be removed or painted over.
The 'spraycation' series which just appeared is already being destroyed and several of the paintings are gone. But there are efforts being made to protect Banksy's art. But maybe the fact that his art is pretty temporary is one of the factors of why the artist is so popular.
One of the paintings that showed a child flying in an inflatable boat with another child hanging on the edge was covered up because in 2018, three-year-old Ava-May Littleboy actually died when her inflatable trampoline was lifted up by strong winds and that happened not too far from the wall where Banksy placed his graffiti. Also, this painting was not included in the video.
What do you think of the "Great British Spraycation"? Do you follow Banksy and his work? If you want to see more of the artist's work, Bored Panda has been a fan for a long time and has numerous articles for you to read. If you click here or here, you will be directed to the most recent ones, so enjoy!