"A wall is a very big weapon. It's one of the nastiest things you can hit someone with."
Banksy (born Bristol, England, c.1974) is the world's most celebrated anonymous artist and the defining figure of street art as a global cultural and market force. Beginning as a stencil graffiti writer in Bristol in the early 1990s, he developed a visual language of satirical precision - rats, policemen, children, flowers, and weaponry - that critiques war, capitalism, and institutional authority with a wit that translates instantly across cultures. His major projects include the 2015 temporary bemusement park Dismaland, the 2017 Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, and the 2018 Sotheby's auction destruction of Girl with Balloon - renamed Love Is in the Bin and subsequently resold for £18.58 million in 2021. His prints are among the most actively traded contemporary works on paper in the world, and his identity remains officially unconfirmed.