«№ 1»

№ 1, original painting

In October 2018 a Banksy canvas of a girl reaching for a red heart balloon sold at Sotheby's in London for just over a million pounds. The moment the hammer fell, a shredder hidden in the frame started cutting the picture into strips. Banksy later renamed it Love Is in the Bin. Destroying it only made it more famous.

That strange loop is where № 1 starts for me. I wanted banksy style art that asks the same question: who owns a street image once it is on a wall, and on a body?

A woman turns away from us in profile, eyes closed, her long hair built up from thick, wavy strokes of paint. Her face is sliced into horizontal strips and crossed by black bars, as if someone had censored her. Her bare back is the wall. It is covered in stencil-style images in black, with touches of red: a girl and her red heart balloon, a masked man throwing a bouquet, two figures kissing, rats with a paint roller, a cartoon mouse in round ears, children holding hands. A few small colour blocks float on the black background.

Street art moved into painting long ago. Jean-Michel Basquiat began as a graffiti writer in New York in the late 1970s. Andy Warhol painted Campbell's soup cans in 1962. The coloured bars on the left are a quiet nod to Mondrian, whose strict grids I like to set beside a tattoo sleeve. For me this is banksy style art taken one step further: a street art canvas where the street climbed onto a person.

It is contemporary pop art, oil and acrylic on canvases, 120x90 cm, and works as statement wall art.

Most of my original paintings are already in private collections, but I paint originals to order in any size. To ask about this one, message me on Instagram or by email. A hand-finished lithograph of this work exists too, and you can order it by Instagram or email.