A man who has often been rumoured to be Banksy has hit back at renewed claims that the elusive street artist’s identity has been revealed, telling people to “grow up and get a life”.
Since emerging in the 1990s, Banksy’s work has attracted worldwide attention. One of the pieces frequently credited with helping build that reputation is Bristol’s ‘The Mild Mild West’.
Other well-known works linked to the artist include ‘Girl with Balloon’, ‘Flower Thrower’, ‘Choose Your Weapon’, ‘Laugh Now’, and ‘Kissing Coppers’.
The person behind the name Banksy has never been publicly confirmed, but after extensive investigation Reuters reported that the artist is believed to be Robin Gunningham.
According to police records, someone using that name was arrested in September 2000 in New York City for allegedly defacing a billboard.
It has also been suggested that Gunningham later legally changed his name and now uses David Jones.
Separately, Londoner George Georgiou has repeatedly found himself misidentified as Banksy after he was photographed fitting Perspex in the area of a Banksy artwork.
Georgiou recently spoke to the Daily Mail to shut down the suggestion that he is the famous masked artist.
He told the outlet: “I’m not Banksy… It’s really annoying, it’s ridiculous and it’s disturbing. The first day, it was a laugh. It’s a bit of an old joke now.”
Georgiou explained he was only nearby because the artwork was on a building owned by his sons.
He added: “When it first happened, there was less reaction than there is now.
“It ain’t really anything that I’m worried about. It’s just really annoying because I’m still working. It’s just disrupting my day endlessly.
“It’s just the day-to-day, every five minutes you pick up the bloody phone and it’s just someone having a giggle.
“That’s all it is. It’s all harmless stuff, but when you’re trying to get on with your life, it’s just really annoying. It’s just a pain in the butt.”
In Reuters’ reporting, a source also said that a man named David Jones entered Ukraine in 2022 around the period when new Banksy works began appearing in the country.
It is believed the passport used by Jones lists the same birthplace associated with Gunningham.
Banksy’s former manager, Stephen Lazarides, told Reuters: “There is no Robin Gunningham. The name you’ve got I killed years ago.”
Meanwhile, Mark Stephens, Banksy’s lawyer, issued a statement saying the artist ‘does not accept that many of the details contained within your enquiry are correct’.
1990s
Banksy’s earliest works began appearing around Bristol in the 1990s, helping establish his name in the UK street-art scene.
Among the early Bristol pieces was graffiti mocking Vladimir Lenin, showing a stencil of the former Soviet leader with a punk-style mohawk and a hoop earring.
Often cited as an early landmark work, ‘Mild Mild West’ shows a teddy bear throwing a Molotov cocktail toward riot police.
2000s
As the new millennium began, Banksy’s stencilled animals — especially monkeys and rats — started turning up across London and elsewhere in the UK.
‘Laugh Now’ appeared in 2002 after the artist was commissioned by Ocean Rooms nightclub in Brighton. It depicts a chimpanzee wearing a sandwich board that reads: “Laugh now, but one day we’ll be in charge.”
Another 2002 work, ‘Girl with Balloon’, became one of the artist’s most widely recognised images after first appearing on London’s Waterloo Bridge and later showing up in Shoreditch.
Other notable works from the decade include ‘Kissing Coppers’, ‘Grim Reaper’, ‘Flower Thrower’, and ‘One Nation Under CCTV’.
2010s and onwards
In 2011, ‘Gorilla in a Pink Mask’ was unveiled. It was later painted over by mistake, but the Eastville, Bristol artwork was subsequently restored.
During the 2010s, Banksy also expanded his work beyond London and Bristol. In 2018 he unveiled a piece called ‘Season’s Greetings’ in Wales, showing a child catching what looks like falling snow on his tongue — revealed from another angle to be ash drifting from a burning bin.
In 2019, another festive-themed work appeared in Birmingham: a homeless man sleeping on a bench, with two painted reindeer positioned to make the real bench appear like a sleigh.
In 2022, Banksy’s work began appearing in Ukraine, with a series of seven anti-war murals reported across the country, including multiple pieces in Kyiv.
Several of the Ukraine artworks were painted directly onto the ruins and damaged structures impacted by the ongoing war with Russia.