I saw a news article online earlier in the week that said local officials were trying to decide if some recent graffiti that has shown up in at least 3 places in Portland were the works of a famous artist – Banksy. 

Banksy is a British graffiti artist born around 1975. Little is known about the guy given his true identity is unconfirmed. He is an artist and an activist. Chances are you have seen his work.  Of the three pieces that I heard were around, we found two.  One was painted over – and the rumor of the 4th was, in my opinion, misinformation. I think that was a different graffiti artist.

This one sadly has been graffiti’d by another artist. But you can get an idea of Banksy’s style. He uses stencils. Why? It’s faster. The story goes he was out creating a huge graffiti piece with some friends when the police caught them. The others ran and got into a car, but he was forced to hide for an hour. During that time, he saw something that gave him the idea of using stencils instead.

This is one I have seen in his self published book: Banksy: Wall and Piece.  He often uses children and animals in his art. His works are amazing with some amazing commentary on the world. He also has done some paintings – some are his pieces he installed in the art museums where the art is located. In the book, he actually comments how long each piece stayed hung in those places.  Some were taken down as soon as 2hrs after he installed them – some have stayed up for weeks.  Check out his website. 

Oh, and I should mention that while everyone is eager to credit Banksy for these images – the local art museum experts are skeptical. Who knows.

Here is the one some had credited to Banksy but it is not:

This is in a well traveled bike lane near our house.  If you look at them all, you will recognize them from Mario Kart.  Banana peels, stars and turtles all mark the way. 

Here is one we found during our search for the Banksy pieces:

And here are two other things of interest. The first is an old sign being shown in a display of antique water pistols:

This sign is pretty iconic in our China Town in Portland.  They had taken it down, but we noticed today it was back: