STOP AND SEARCH for Banksy (Part 2.1): The Study of a Master

Through the Eyes of Banksy, Tanya Eddy (2024)

   NOTE TO THE READER:  If you are just finding this artist series, “STOP AND SEARCH for Banksy,” then I encourage you to hop back to Introducing the Character (Part 1 of the series) and follow the posts chronologically, as you won’t want to miss any of the puzzle pieces.

Before we begin: We left Banksy, in our last post, as he was headed for London.  This post, which I’m numbering as “Part 2.1,” is an extra bit, that I decided to go ahead and share.  Even though it is out of line in our sorting of the pieces, you will find some additional information, to hang onto for a later post.  

  A couple of months ago, when I started researching an infamous street artist named Banksy, I fully intended my findings to consume, only, a couple of blog posts.  This would allow my students the opportunity to learn about art history, in-the-making. Sometimes, things do not always go as we plan…

    I became increasingly intrigued as I researched his past.  I kept thinking to myself, that there MUST be someone out there who knows who he is—or, at the very least, what he looks like.  As I delved into the rabbit hole, commonly known as the internet, I found video upon video, which featured the artist at work.  Whether it was tagging a building or mischievously pulling a prank, there was no shortage of photographic evidence, much of which was commissioned by the artist, himself.  (Hang onto that fact.  It will be needed for a later post.)  There was, only, one problem with my discovery: most of the footage didn’t show his face.  That footage which did, was the product of earlier technology, and offered blurry figures, at best.  

    Banksy has been clever in his game of anonymity.  It’s easy to see why he has never been discovered.  After a brief moment of dejection at this thought, I resolved that it could, in fact, be done; and, the best person to find an elusive artist, is another artist.  However, considering that a full and unobstructed photo of the man has never been found, I knew it wouldn’t be an easy task.  I mean, he NEVER makes a mistake!  That is, until, he did.

    While searching for clues as to his appearance, I came across an ITV News interview, by Haig Gordon, from 2003.  In this interview, he speaks with a man claiming to be Banksy.  The topic of the interview was Banksy’s upcoming show, Turf Wars.  Because of other interviews (none of which were on camera), I can confirm that the voice of this man, who used a makeshift mask from what appears to be a t-shirt, is consistent across the board.  The link, highlighted above, will take you to that interview.  At the end of the video, Gordon reflects on the event, and states that, giving him this on-camera interview, was a mistake on Banksy’s part.  What Mr. Gordon may not have realized, is that this was not Banksy’s only misstep.  However, it was a crucial part to our Banksy puzzle.

    One curious thing about Banksy, is that he routinely documents his devilment.  As a consequence of this trait, I have discovered, in addition to Gordon’s interview, two additional, telling videos.  Both works of cinematography were created to document “Banksy stunts.”  

    If you are keeping score, I now have three videos in my evidence pile, with which to piece together the artist’s face.  Gordon’s video provided several perfect screen grabs of Banksy’s eyes.  The second video furnished an even more perfect, half-face reveal.  Finally, the third video screen grab gave me a very confident and unmasked Banksy.  (Read that last sentence again.)  However, this unmasked version showed a Banksy, who is older than the other two versions—which, considering when this video was made, is correct.  Banksy had progressed to middle age, and was, no longer, the young man from Gordon’s video of twenty years earlier.  

    Because of my earlier statement, that no clear video or photographic evidence (due to the lack of advanced technology, at the time) has been found, I’m sure that you’re probably thinking that I have miscounted my evidence pieces.  To that, I say, the score is now four to one–my favor.  The crucial blow to Banksy’s anonymity game was his lack of being able to predict the future.  

Banksy never anticipated AI.  

    This final point is what, ultimately, allowed me to see the full face of Banksy.  I won’t go into the exact details of the how; but, I will reveal, that I ran the screenshots through a photo app.  From this point, I began to look for similarities between the video grabs.  When I took his eyes from the Gordon (ITV news) interview and did an overlay onto the third grab, that I mentioned above, they were a match.  Albeit, a twenty year age difference, they were, still, a match.  When I looked at other features from the second video, which revealed half of his face, I, again, could see matching features, which included eyes, mouth, nose, and facial hair patterns.  

    I was, now, faced with what I should do with this information.  Of course, as an artist, I knew that I, absolutely, had to draw his portrait.  So, that is where I started.  I drew and began to shade in the full face of Banksy.  Somewhere, along the way, I switched gears, and decided to draw the face that he had presented to the world twenty years ago, in the ITV News interview—the partially hidden face, revealing the mischievous eyes of a young artist, who was about to bomb the world with creativity and make it rethink its opinion of street art and those who create it.  However, in typical artist fashion, I couldn’t just draw Banksy: I had to pay homage to his art and stunts.  

    The full timelapse video, along with the final reveal (the above is a teaser) of my Banksy portrait, may be found on my YouTube at  Through the Eyes of Banksy . This 8 minute video represents 33 hours of portrait work and 128,000 pen strokes.  It was drawn and painted in the Procreate digital art app.  I decided to start with crosshatching, for the shadows, which references his “Di-Faced Tenners” stunt—crosshatching resembling the engraving technique used in the production of paper money.   The background of the portrait was painted in oil, as a nod to his altering of old oil paintings.  Finally, the teaser is in reference to his piece, Grin Reaper.  If you stay to the end of the YouTube video, you will see the piece I created from the ITV News interview, minus the smiley face.  While you can view this image of Banksy on the ITV video, I have drawn a clarified version of the piece.  

    In the end, I concluded that my winning the “what does Banksy look like” game wasn’t really a fair win.  Had he realized that AI would be a thing, he probably wouldn’t have played the game, at all.  My current edge isn't fair to that young artist, who was trying to make a name for himself.  Perhaps, he will, someday, reveal his face to the world.  Truly, I would say that is his privilege and not ours.  However, this fact does not stop my research or this blog series.  I will continue to piece together the man behind the legend, and allow you to draw your own conclusions.  

“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

‭‭John‬ ‭8‬:‭32‬