People: Banksy’s Valentine’s Day graffiti.
LONDON >> British street artist Banksy has given a Valentine’s Day gift to his hometown of Bristol in western England with the appearance of a new mural showing a small girl with a catapult and a splatter of red flowers.
Banksy — whose identity is not publicly known — confirmed that the artwork is his in an Instagram post on Valentine’s Day.
The artwork shows a young girl in a headscarf stenciled onto the side of a house in the Barton Hill area of Bristol with black and white paint.
She holds a catapult in one hand with the other hand behind her, as though she has just launched a projectile.
At the end of the catapult’s trajectory is a bright red shape like a blood spatter, made of red plastic leaves and flowers.
It was spotted on Thursday morning, the day before Valentine’s Day.
Banksy’s street art often draws attention to social issues by adding elements of darkness to otherwise joyful scenes.
In December, the elusive artist highlighted the issue of rough sleeping with a mural showing two flying reindeer pulling a homeless man on a street-bench sleigh, in the central English city of Birmingham.
Banksy now has no gallery representing him, but discreet multimillion-dollar sales of original works to selected private collectors have helped fund his ongoing graffiti stunts and ambitious largerscale projects, like “Dismaland,” a pop-up amusement park in southern England, and the Walled Off Hotel, an exhibition space, spray paint store and nine-room lodging in Bethlehem on the West Bank.
Banksy has also gone to great lengths to regulate the resale trade in his output.
In 2008 he set up Pest Control, an agency to authenticate works and prevent fakes and site-specific street pieces from appearing on the market.
Reputable dealers and auction houses now sell Banksy works only with Pest Control certification.