Banksy Inspiration

Graffiti is a form of art where imaginations and ideas are expressed by writing or drawing on walls that are mostly within public view, so most of the societies consider graffiti and street art vandalism. Throughout history, there has been evidence of graffiti since ancient times, from ancient Greek, ancient Egypt, and the Roman Empire. Walls painting or graffiti was use to write down the history of that time for the newer generations to be able to maintain and study the remnants of the ancient culture.

Now, it is used a a platform for one who seeks attention from the public. Although, graffiti has also been one of the most fragile medium due to the debate whether graffiti is vandalism or art, Alonso(1998, as cited in Eldridge, 2013, p. 22-23) stated that graffiti have become more stylised and was developing from tags to a more masterpiece art. People who supports graffiti sees it as a form of art, but those who don't, sees it as an illegal action.

Banksy, as we know, is a mystery man who paints his work of art around the world. Born in 1974, Banksy is a street artist from Bristol that uses stencil technique to paint his graffiti. His work inspires people around the globe owing to the fact that his artwork reflects the truth of the society and are easy to understand with dark humour art. Wherever Banksy goes, he creates an impact using art as a medium to illustrate the decaying of philosophy, politics, and society. Although critics call him a fraud, followers instead call him a genius with his art that always have one explicit message: a call for change(Brenner, 2019, p. 35).

The artwork that I chose was to create a set of monkey stencils and paint it. The inspiration that I got was from a painting called 'Devolved Parliament", a painting depicting chimpanzees occupying in the House Of Commons. Monkey as we know as a theory, shares the same genetics as us, human. I think it is very effective to use monkey to represent human since monkey has less intelligence. Monkey in this artwork means the devolution of the society caused by politics. I wanted to create a set of graffitis, so I drew three monkeys to illustrate this rotten society.

Artwork 01

The concept behind this monkey is from the ongoing protest in Thailand combines with the song 'Love It If We Made It' from The 1975. The artwork portrays a monkey holding a sign that has a printed word of  'Modernity has failed us'.

Artwork 02

This monkey is a representation of modern humans where it is wearing a headset that is connected to a smartphone, smartwatch, and also wearing a sweater that has a printed image of a famous painting ' The Creation Of Adam'. I intended to create this monkey to reflect our use of technology in modern world in an unpleasant way.

Artwork 03

The concept of this design is 'Resistance'. I was inspired by the quote "When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty". It basically means that resistance is required to create change in the system. The logo Anarchy illustrates the complete absence or the denial of government's attention to improve the society, so to decentralise power and let the citizen of the country have the power to choose  what their life will look like.