Banksy the graffitist at work..

He’s the most successful graffitist ever, the elusive outsider who has become the UK's unlikeliest national treasure. Banksy is a sought after modern day artist whose work can be found and viewed for free in and around London, Palestine and the world.



His work has sold for $1,870,000 at Sotheby’s in New York, or £636,500 at Sotheby’s in London, as Banksy’s and collectors such as Brad Pitt and Christina Aguilera are falling over themselves to buy them, would I row across a scummy canal to stencil a wall only a handful of people will see? Would you? So why the cold trips to Camden to paint illegally on a hidden wall?

“I still paint graffiti because I genuinely think the side of a canal is a more interesting place to have art than a museum,” he counters. “And the fact of the matter is, if you exhibit in a gallery you have to compete against Rembrandt, but if you paint down an alley you only have to compete against a dustbin. I guess it’s the art equivalent of hanging around with fat people to make yourself look thin.”

CCTV cameras are one of his obsessions at the moment; they are, he says, one of the worst things about modern Britain.

“The amount of security cameras gets on my nerves. Obviously from a professional point of view, but also on a more philosophical level. I don’t understand why Britain has embraced cameras more than anywhere else — is it because we’re desperate to feel we still matter and we quite enjoy the idea someone is always watching us? I hate it when they say, ‘If you’ve done nothing wrong then you’ve got nothing to hide.’ Everyone’s got something to hide, otherwise there’s something really wrong with them.”

More of this article and to see Banksy in action click here.. Banksy in "the world’s first street-art disaster movie" - Times Online