Banksy Original Reclaimed Street Art Paintbrush Love Rat Graffiti London Sign

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Banksy Paintbrush Rat The placement of this Banksy Paintbrush Rat is enormously significant and adds the crucial degree of irony that is so common in the vast majority of Banksy’s street art. The rat’s pre-date much of Banksy’s larger, more elaborate works that he has become world famous for due to the media attention these often politically focussed, large scale illegal art works bring. There have been numerous works carried out humorously utilising street signs and it is fair to say, were a regular sight around capital cities at the time. This was when Banksy prints could be purchased direct from galleries and book shops etc, for tens of pounds rather than thousands. His original works were beginning to attract investment buyers as publicity became more and more focussed on his identity. Banksy’s early work was everywhere, as quickly as it appeared it was either blasted away by council graffiti removal teams, vandalised further to a point of unrecognisable destruction, gradually worn away by the beautiful weather we are subjected to, or reclaimed/removed/retrieved (call it what you will) by individuals and collectors as well as the local councils who replace the street furniture on a regular basis in an attempt to keep the areas looking presentable. This particular style of rat has been used in many forms in order to portray different meanings. I believe it has often been referred to as a ‘love rat’ largely owing to the print run featuring the design. Banksy often chose to pair this style of paintbrush rat with a heart, exclamation/question mark, smiley faces and short hand written (sprayed or marker) quotes in an effort to get his point across. Banksy used his lightning fast wit to quickly change the wording of this sign to read BLACK RAT ROAD and thus created an unquestionably satirical street art work for the public to find. The paintbrush rat appears to be painting the RAT lettering onto the sign adding to the humour. The term ‘black rat’ is now synonymous with Banksy and leaves no doubt regarding who created it. The sign also features his name (artist tag). Unfortunately, somebody scratched the swear word ‘F**K’ and what appears to be an arrow pointing to Banksy’s name into the metal sign but this is only noticeable in certain light conditions at close inspection. As you can see there are also some scratches to the body of the rat which again are only noticeable at close inspection. This is not a lovingly created bubble wrapped art work on canvas; it has been at the mercy of vandals. I had some stickers and tagging (marker pen scrawl) removed because it was entirely unrelated to the artwork and in my opinion detracted from its character. The Banksy elements were totally unaffected throughout the process. There is also a large ‘10foot’ tag on the back of this street level sign. 10foot is a graffiti tagger that hates Banksy (and the majority of other talented street artists) and has defaced many Banksy works over the years, in some cases completely ruining the work. I can only assume that the 10foot tag was present before the Banksy work. If you recognise the art work, have any further information or possess photographs of it in situ originally I would be more than happy to discuss money with you as obviously this would increase the provenance and value considerably. I have tried to describe the condition of this artwork in as much detail as I can to ensure you are not disappointed when you receive it. It has character but that is what makes it such a wonderful insight into Banksy’s early career. In my opinion, it’s an awful lot more interesting to look at than the unsigned print I swapped it for, in around 2006. The dimensions are approximately 51 inches by 13 inches. Item weight is around 4 kilos but will obviously weigh more after packaging materials are added. Postage and shipping quotes appear to vary considerably and my postage prices reflect the absolute maximum UK and worldwide postage costs expected. Actual postage costs should be much low... read more

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