On my mind

MY daily morning ritual includes examining my body to see if anything has dropped off in the night and checking to see if there is a ‘Banksy’ on the side of my house.

If the latter, then it will be chipped off, wrapped up and delivered under police escort to the People’s Republic of Burry Port.

That will be entirely in keeping with the philosophy of Banksy, the master of graffiti, painter, activist, filmmaker and provocateur, whose recent perceptive Port Talbot creation shows a child in a bobble hat apparently enjoying a snow shower, but which is in reality ash billowing from a burning wooden crate.

Subversive, anonymous and sub-cultural, Banksy has rubbished the snooty bourgeois world of innocuous art and used his set of stencils and spray paint to connect with ordinary people.

What he called the low level dissent of graffiti was replaced by the street art power of the multi-layered stencil, which gave him more opportunity for political edge, satire and dark humour, much inspired by the original stencil pioneer, Blek Le Rat.

We await confirmation that Banksy has brought his cans into Llanelli and painted a rat in Vaughan Street.

Neither is there confirmation that it is the first attempt at street art by Banksy’s allegedly Welsh son, Ieuan ap Banksy, who was seen leaving hurriedly with a paper bag over his head.

In the meantime, despite the removal of the enigmatic Swirl Cone on the Bynea roundabout, Llanelli can continue to enjoy its existing street sculptures.

My favourite has to be the bronze ‘Industrial Symphony’, situated in East Gate near the Ffwrnes Theatre. There is nothing banal about this piece of people’s art, but a potent tribute to the men and women who worked in the tinplate industry over many generations.

Follow Graham on Twitter@GeeTDee