Banksy is the most celebrated graffiti artist in the UK, and his street art is popular all over the world. His identity is still unknown, which is probably vital considering graffiti is illegal. He was born in Bristol in 1974 and some of his earliest work is hidden around the city.
So we went to find it.
The first we wanted to see was my favorite piece, the cheeky 'Well hung lover'. It was actually painted on the side of a sexual health clinic. I read that when asked about it, Banksy said he didn't know what the building was and thought the coincidence was hilarious. We found this one pretty easily as it's right in the center of Bristol, on Park Street. There are many quirky shops around and I was really excited to see some of them. It took us a while to move on. (Oops)
Like many other Banksy artworks, this was vandalized by someone with a blue paitnball gun. Here's an older photo of the original version
After I finished wandering through the shops we walked across the river to find 'The Grim Reaper'. We knew that this was painted on the side of a boat in the harbor and we spent over an hour looking for the damn boat. Then I looked on google (like I could have done to start with) and saw that it was moved to the local museum to protect it from damage. After we found it we took advantage of the detour and had a nice stroll around the museum to see the rest of the great stuff.
Here's a picture of it in its original place.
This is inside the MShed museum. Bristol is known for its anual Balloon festival (Yay Balooons!!)
'Break please?'
Nope, no break yet. Only about 10 minutes walk away we found 'The girls with the pierced eardrum'. This brilliant piece was vandalized just a few hours after it's appearance, although I think the black paint thrown over it gives it even more character. Banksy was inspired by Johannes Vermeer's 'Girl with Pearl Earring', though his girls's earring is an alarm box.
By now I was definitely getting tired, so on the way to the next Banksy we stopped by the famous Clifton Suspension Bridge for a much needed break. The park was pretty quite so we sat on the grass and enjoyed the magnificent view.
Our next location was a pretty long walk away, so it took us a while to find the courage to go on. Another one of the earliest works, 'The Mild Mild West' was definitely worth the journey. Apparently the beautiful piece was a joke at the people of the West Country being more 'mild west' than 'wild west'. The owner of the bar next to it told us that this was also vandalized no long ago but they managed to clean it back up.
(excuse the finger :D)
After this we couldn't walk anymore, so we decided to take the bus to the next one. The 'Cat and Dog' is set within a collection of amazing street art on a side road in the east of Bristol. We had to move two massive bins that were right in front of it before we could get a look. I assume local people have no idea how much it's worth. It was really special to be the only ones around to appreciate this image.
The last Banksy we went to see was pretty close and we heard it used to be very popular in Bristol. Sadly, when we found the 'Gorilla in a pink mask', it was only a ghostly figure. Apparently it was whitewashed by the owner of the new cultural center in the building, who explained that he hadn't heard of the artist. It's really upsetting how brilliant art is getting so easily destroyed, but I guess its vulnerability makes it even more beautiful and valuable.
This is what it originally looked like, before the 'accident'
We're already planing our next Banksy tour in London. If you would like to join, leave us a comment and we can organize an awesome Steemit day out. In the meantime you can find some of his other street work here: http://banksy.co.uk/
Thank you for reading,
Corina