- Have you seen the artwork? Email ryan.hooper@dailymail.co.uk
A new piece of Banksy street art has appeared in London, showing the silhouette of a goat balancing on top of some masonry on an exterior wall.
The piece shows the goat looking down towards the ground of the building near Kew Bridge in West London, with debris falling down the side of the building.
The guerilla artist, famed for his politically-themed works, confirmed the piece on his Instagram page and there has been much speculation about its meaning.
Art teacher, Amber Doffman, 26, spotted the artist’s Instagram post and immediately recognised its location before rushing straight out the door to go and find it.
She said: ‘I saw his post on Instagram 40 seconds after it went up and I immediately recognised where the art was. So I got in my car and raced there. I was there 15 minutes after he posted on Instagram – and the paint was still wet.’
Ms Doffman, who lives in Acton, said she has been writing to Banksy for years – and just a few months ago emailed him asking him to come to west London.
‘I emailed him asking him to come to West London and now here he is,’ the teacher said. ‘I’ll tell myself I made this happen. I mean, probably not – but it is a huge coincidence. I just can’t believe he was standing there. It’s unbelievable.’
Ms Doffman added that she believes the artwork is ‘to do with the environment – and how we’ve ruined it to the point that animals don’t know where to go anymore’.
She continued: ‘It’s also worth noting that that security camera wasn’t facing that way before. Banksy has turned it towards the goat. It’s like it’s wanting its attention.’
A worker was later seen climbing up a ladder and turning the security camera back the other way.
Ms Doffman added that the occasion was particularly special for her – because Banksy is the reason she took up the career she did.
She said: ‘He is my idol and the reason I became an art teacher. I am beyond inspired by Banksy. I hope they cover it with Perspex immediately before someone ruins it – I’m so scared it will get vandalised.’
The artwork is Banksy’s first since a stunt at Glastonbury Festival in June in which an inflatable dinghy full of dummies dressed as migrants launched into the crowd, live on the BBC.
It happened during a set by alternative chart-toppers Idles, who had led the crowd in a chant of ‘f*** the king’, which was also broadcast live on BBC Four as part of their coverage of the long-running music and arts festival in Somerset.
Many fans at the Other Stage – traditionally billed as the alternative to the flagship Pyramid Stage – thought the inflatable life raft, carrying a number of seated dummies in high-visibility vests, was a prop for their politically charged headline set.
But a representative for Idles said that the boat was created by fellow Bristolian Banksy, and that the band were not aware of what had happened until after they came off stage.
The demonstration was thought to have been a nod to Rishi Sunak’s tough stance on tackling the small boats crisis.
It was described by then-home secretary James Cleverly as ‘trivialising’ small boats crossings and ‘vile’, but the artist responded saying his reaction was a ‘a bit over the top’.
The graffiti artist previously funded a migrant rescue ship, which was impounded in Italy last year after responding to distress calls in the Mediterranean.
In March this year, another Banksy appeared overnight on the side of a building near Finsbury Park.
It showed a splattering of green which has been painted behind a bare tree to look like foliage, with a stencil of a person holding what appears to be a pressure hose next to it.
The site then attracted legions of Banksy fans to catch a glimpse at it.
But within three days the mural was defaced with white paint. It prompted the local council to erect a metal security fence to protect it from further damage.
The Mail on Sunday previously revealed Banksy to be Robin Gunningham, a middle-class artist who has repeatedly refused to confirm his identity.
His reputation is founded on the popularity of his trademark stencil-style art in public spaces – including on walls in London, Brighton, Bristol and even on the West Bank barrier separating Israelis and Palestinians.
He has dozens of celebrity collectors including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Christina Aguilera, and his work repeatedly sells for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
He is also known for his headline-making stunts, such as leaving an inflatable doll dressed as a Guantanamo prisoner in Disneyland, California, and hanging a version of the Mona Lisa – but with a smiley face – in the Louvre, Paris.
His artwork Girl With Balloon famously self-destructed in a Sotheby’s London saleroom when it descended into a shredder in 2018.
That piece was then renamed Love Is In The Bin, which in 2021 sold for £18.6 million, a record for Banksy’s work.
She worked as a researcher for Labour MP Austin Mitchell, who died in 2021, and later set up Principle Affairs, a lobby group for charities.
Ms Millward is thought to have met Mr Gunningham in 2003 before they married in Las Vegas in 2006.
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