Banksy has sprayed nine animal silhouettes onto the streets of London since early August – and art fans are rushing to catch a glimpse of the rare works while they still can.
A mural of a goat perched on top of a wall in Richmond was the first of the animal series to pop up in the capital.
Banksy claimed ownership of the goat silhouette with tumbling rocks on the side of a building near Kew Bridge on Instagram on 5 August.
Since then, elephants in Chelsea, monkeys in Shoreditch, a pelican on a fish and chip shop in Walthamstow and piranhas in central London have been confirmed as originals by the elusive street artist.
Just yesterday, a – since vandalised – rhino appeared mounting a car in Charlton, and this morning, a primate-led escape was painted at the entrance to London Zoo.
Two of the new street art pieces – a wolf on a satellite dish and a cat on a billboard – have already been stolen and taken down.
It’s the latest art series from Banksy following high criticism of the small boat filled with migrant dummies in orange life jackets the street artist crowd surfed at Glastonbury Festival.
A Banksy mural caused a stir in London on 18 March with street art that many discerned to be a statement on environmental politics in the city.
The elusive British street artist’s artwork was back on the map for the first time since December after the tree mural appeared on the side of a building on Hornsey Road in Finsbury Park.
A green paint splash behind a cut-back tree, with a stencil of a person holding a pressure hose to the side, was officially claimed by Banksy in an uncaptioned Instagram post.
Since reaching notability in the late 1990s, Banksy has hosted exhibitions including the Dismaland Bemusement Park in 2015, the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem with “the worst view in the world”, and a Cut & Run project in Glasgow last year to officially display his art.
Though his work spans the continents, with artistic stints in New York, Paris and Ukraine outside of the UK, galleries and building owners often auction or relocate the prized pieces to avoid vandalism, and the appearance of most murals is fleeting.
Several of the graffiti artist’s famed rat stencils still exist in the capital, and past works scatter the Bristol harbourside where his spray painting career…
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