Banksy to be revealed (again) this time in Paint!

Banksy the notoriously secretive Bristol born infamous British street / graffiti artist is to have his face portrayed in a 6ft high oil painting to be exhibited in a Gallery show in London on the 28^th October 2010 at Warehouse 45 Gallery in North London. The show entitled “Revelations” is the brainchild of a London based artist calling himself Mason Storm and brings together some quality artists from all over the world and its split the UK Street / graffiti scene in half!

It’s no new news to hear Banksy is to be revealed, the tabloids have been doing it for years now and whether or not you believe there claims to know his real name are solely down to the individual reader and open to speculation, for me, when you hide behind anonymity and have such a famous pseudonym its quite predictable that people are going to want to unmask your identity.

The issues that have been thrown up with this new show and the portrait of Banksy are not whether it is a real likeness of the artist or not but if its moral for a fellow artist (himself also hiding behind a pseudonym to protect his privacy we assume) to gain publicity for his own work on the back of the Banksy name?

It’s been a heated debate too! With Mason receiving threats and criticism from many corners of the Urban Art world, I have seen the negative effects of this show, my own paintings share the same gallery representation as Mason Storm and I’ve witnessed some more touchy artists removing there paintings from the gallery, not wishing to be associated in any form with the Mason Storm name or companies representing him.

It was quite early in the year that I first noticed the funny little “Mason Knows” posters appearing on websites and walls, with Masons declaration: “After 10 years of nefarious activities and stalking I have managed to capture the illusive Banksy at work, face on and will reveal him in a new oil, hopefully finished by Sept. Don’t rant it’s high time the mystery was revealed.!” Followed by a competition on Flickr with prizes promised for the funniest or cheekiest placement of the “Mason Knows” posters, these posters were free to download from Masons Flickr page. This worked very well in getting the stunt noticed.

Unusually for me, I find myself sitting on the fence on this one, I’m a big fan of Banksy`s work both for its quality, social and political comment, he’s a master at it. Likewise having seen Masons work he is no art novice, his oil paintings are stunning in there realism, his anti-imperialist statues and sculptures are both brilliant as they are controversial and stand out pieces of art.

Just like Banksy, Mason is no stranger to controversy surrounding his art, a piece he did of a little girl replete in black balaclava, combat clothes and a bomb laden suicide vest called Little Terror caused quite an up roar when placed in the gallery in 2009 only a short walk from Finsbury Park mosque, a clear sign of the over sensitive times we live in.

Whatever the real reasons behind Mason deciding to do this painting id imagine he will keep to himself, I don’t think it’s anything more or deeper than self promotion and unlike some in the art world I don’t begrudge him this, he came up with the idea; good or bad, put his own head above the parapet to be shot at and from what I’ve seen so far has handled the critics with ease, I understand someone has already asked to buy the painting when finished but Mason refused to sell it as they insisted on him not reproducing the painting.

The exhibition will be running for two weeks and I will be going along expecting to see some well executed works of art from some great artists, T.WAT and id-iom`s work alone is worth the trip, I will of course be interested in what Mason has come up with regarding the Banksy painting, I’m sure it will be of a very high standard and I hope it lasts undamaged for the full two weeks while on show.

Banksy`s own view on all this? We have no idea, he never confirms or denies any claims to his real identity but interestingly a man called Robin Gunningham has recently removed Mason Storm from his friends list on Facebook.