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Since 2000 Banksy has built a reputation through his street art to become one of the most talked about, popular artists of the present day. Often compared to 1980s American street artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, the content of his work covers a variety of political and social issues including war, corruption and inequality with a head-on directness and tongue-in-cheek rebellious humour.
The present work belongs to his most celebrated series to date called the 'Crude Oils' - modified oil paintings in which he applies his street graffiti to fine art paintings by other artists. "If you want to survive as a graffiti writer when you go indoors," Banksy explained, "I figured your only option is to carry on painting over things that don't belong to you there either." (Banksy, Wall and Piece, Century 2006, p. 158) The 'Crude Oils' tackle with similar subversive intent and visual humour the themes of political and social commentary found in Banksy's street art, and like his carefully placed, stencilled graffiti, the idea of context is all important. Over the last few years, a disguised Banksy has succeeded in placing his corrupted oil paintings onto the walls of the world's most respected museums and art galleries including The Louvre, The Tate, The British Museum and New York's Museum of Modern Art. These light-hearted gestures of 'art terrorism', many of which hung for several days before being noticed and removed, poke fun at the closed and elitist nature of the art world as it is perceived by many. In this, as well as in their use of another artist's work as a readymade, Banksy's crude oils draw clear parallels with works like Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q., Robert Rauschenberg's Erased De Kooning Drawing, and more recently Jake and Dinos Chapman's Disasters of War in which they reworked an entire series of Goya's original prints.
From start to finish, each exceptional piece of artwork is thoughtfully hand-crafted by one of our artists at Project Picasso. In a world of high-volume production and mass consumption, we instead chose to go the old-fashioned way by leaving the machine out of the process. We only offer pieces that are wholly created by extraordinarily talented humans and by doing so, we are able to employ and sustain hundreds of artists worldwide.
Essentially, the artistic gems we offer are one-off masterpieces. The process by which we create our artwork is completely organic so not any two are exactly alike. Like fingerprints or slices of pizza, the painting hanging on your wall is truly one of a kind. From old-world Renaissance era classics to modern-day contemporary compositions, each canvas is lovingly composed by paint-stained hands.
