Discovering Banksy – Part 3

Famous street artist Banksy displays his art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls and self-built physical prop pieces. Banksy no longer sells photographs or reproductions of his street graffiti, but his public “installations” are regularly resold, often even by removing the wall they were painted on.

When we think of an artist, the first things that comes to mind are their most renowned pieces. So here’s a refreshing way in rediscovering Banksy’s art — a little viewing over some pages of his sketchbook. Scroll below to view some of Banksy’s rare sketches and have a sneak of what goes into his artistic process.

Sketch of policemen together with the subject of Edvard Munch’s The Scream

“Riot Cop Drawing” from Dalston, 2003

This sketch was exhibited at the Vanina Holasek / Bankrobber London show in NYC Dec 2nd-29th 2007. Listed as “Tom Tom” Piece work 2004 (but 2002/3 is more likely).

The drawing shows a window display formulated for a Banksy show at TomTom Gallery in London (Banksys gallery at the time), with ideas for the window graphics/paint/artwork incorporating “Fuck the Police” and Banksy as well as. An early example of his now iconic signature. The show never materialised at TomTom but was to take another much larger form at the infamous “Turf War” show in Dalston (East London) in 2003.

Sketch of a person holding a stereo with the words “Don’t hate the player, hate the game”

Banksy’s sketchbook drawing of his freehand Cat & Dog street piece in Easton, Bristol in the late 90s

Cat & Dog Piece in Easton, late 90’s

Sketch of graffiti with pointing hands

Sketch of a maid with the words “grim spot for it light skin tone”

Banksy’s “Sweep It Under The Carpet Maid” sketch

This is a sketch of one of Banksy’s more famous works “Sweep It Under The Carpet Maid”. Banksy explained the meaning behind the pictures: “In the bad old days, it was only popes and princes who had the money to pay for their portraits to be painted, this is a portrait of a maid called Leanne who cleaned my room in a Los Angeles motel. She was quite a feisty lady.”