Banksy Reveals Meaning Behind Surprising Animal Artworks

A week-long series of animal artworks by Banksy came to an end over the weekend with two final additions. On Saturday, a big wild cat stretching appeared on a disused billboard in Cricklewood in North West London and, on Sunday, a police box became a tank of bloodthirsty piranhas in the City, London’s main financial district. The anonymous street artist has also finally revealed the true meaning behind the works.

Every day last week, Banksy unveiled the black silhouette of a different animal at a new location in the sprawling U.K. capital. On Monday, a goat appeared in Richmond followed by two elephants in Chelsea on Tuesday. Three monkeys appeared on an overpass on Brick Lane on Wednesday, then a howling wolf on a satellite disk in Peckham on Thursday, and two hungry pelicans atop a fish bar in Walthamstow on Friday.

A City of London Police officer looks at an artwork by street artist Banksy, the seventh to released this week, depicting piranha fish swimming around a Police Box, in the City of London, on August 11, 2024. Photo: Henry Nicholls/ AFP via Getty Images.

Banksy claimed authorship of all seven images via his Instagram but offered no further explanation, tantalizing a fanbase that admires his penchant for social and political commentary. Almost immediately, internet users speculated about the works’ possible meanings. The goat, debuted last Monday, which appears to perch precariously on a ledge? Commenter @robbartlett13 read it as a representation of “the human race on the precipice” while others thought it might refer to the scapegoating of immigrants and racial minorities during recent far-right riots in the U.K.

In reality, a spokesperson for Pest Control Office, the organization that supports Banksy’s practice, has reportedly “indicated” to the Observer that “recent theorizing about the deeper significance of each new image has been way too involved.”

Rather than offering dire ruminations on the state of the world, these works are intended to “cheer people with a moment of unexpected amusement, as well as to gently underline the human capacity for creative play, rather than for destruction and negativity.”

Indeed, his new artworks have used popular wild animals to make visual puns out of the everyday urban architecture, allowing us to see these features in a new light. For example, monkeys swing using the indent running along an overpass or a prowling jungle cat inhabits an unusually leafy part of London.

A cyclist passes by a new artwork by Banksy on an old billboard in Cricklewood. The artwork, depicting a wild cat, is the sixth new artwork in six days in London by the elusive street artist. Photo: Vuk Valcic/ SOPA Images/ LightRocket via Getty Images.

Although the new series is only a week old, at least two of the artworks have already gone. On Thursday, a troop of masked men brazenly stole the satellite dish bearing Banksy’s howling wolf in broad daylight, just hours after it was announced. The police investigation into the incident is ongoing and there have been no arrests so far, the Metropolitan Police confirmed today.

More recently, on Saturday, the disused billboard onto which Banksy had inserted a sprawling wild cat was dismantled and removed by contractors amid concerns it would otherwise be taken. They were booed by a crowd of angry onlookers.

According to a report by PA, one of the men apparently claimed that he would store the artwork temporarily in case Banksy plans to reclaim it but, otherwise, “it’ll go in a skip.” The billboard’s owner has other ideas, having reportedly informed police that he plans to donate it to an art gallery.

“It is a shame that some people just can’t leave the works alone,” commented Michel Boersma, a curator of Banksy’s art. “These street artworks need to be seen on their original locations, as intended by the artist.”

In the summer of 2021, Banksy made the Great British Spraycation, a similarly lighthearted series of artworks across the U.K.’s coastal towns, apparently inspired by the travel restrictions that saw many Brits opt for holidays closer to home. Though these works were playful, they had some satirical bite. In one mural in the Suffolk town of Lowestoft, a rat relaxing on a deck chair holds up a martini glass just below a pipe that occasionally drips sewage.

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