Banksy Quotes about Art

Banksy is a famous British street artist, wordsmith, printmaker and activist who uses a pseudonym to stay anonymous. He is best known for his stencil artworks that fetch record amounts at auction, his public art installations, and for his views on society, politics and popular culture. Famous Banksy artworks include “Flower Thrower”, “The Walled Off Hotel”, “Gorilla in a Pink Mask”, “Girl with Balloon”, “Bombing Middle England”, “Bomb Hugger”, “Kissing Coppers”, “Banksus Militus Ratus”, “Show Me the Monet”, “One Nation Under CCTV” and “The Son of a Migrant from Syria”. Popular documentaries made by Banksy include “Exit Through the Gift Shop”, “The Antics Roadshow”, and “The Banksy Job”.

Mini biography: Details of Banksy are unknown. He is reported to have been born between 1973 and 1975. He may have been born in Bristol, England in the United Kingdom. It has also been widely reported that the real name of the graffiti artist is Robin Gunningham but this is not confirmed.

List of Famous Banksy Art Quotes

The time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Any fame is a by-product of making something that means something. You don’t go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a shit. Banksy

I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me. Banksy

The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it. Banksy

The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires. Banksy

I wouldn’t sell shit to Charles Saatchi. If I sell 55,000 books and however many screen prints, I don’t need one man to tell me I’m an artist. It’s hugely different if people buy it, rather than one f##king Tory punter does. No, I’d never knowingly sell anything to him. Banksy

I sucked a lot of breasts to get where I am today. Banksy

If you don’t own a train company then you go and paint on one instead. It all comes from that thing at school when you had to have name tags in the back of something.. that makes it belong to you. You can own half the city by scribbling your name over it. Banksy

Getting paranoid is an occupational hazard of illicit street painting, which is good. Your mind is working at its best when you’re being paranoid. You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation at high speed with total clarity. I’m not interested in looking at things made by people who aren’t paranoid, they’re not working to their full capacity. Banksy

A wall is a very big weapon. It’s one of the nastiest things you can hit someone with. Banksy

Graffiti ultimately wins out over proper art because it becomes part of your city, it’s a tool; ‘I’ll meet you in that pub, you know, the one opposite that wall with a picture of a monkey holding a chainsaw’. I mean, how much more useful can a painting be than that? Banksy

You can win the rat race but you’re still a rat. Banksy

Remember crime against property is not real crime. People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access. Banksy

When graffiti first started it was about getting noticed. But with inflation ‘getting noticed’ is worth almost nothing these days. Now you have to be a genuine nuisance if you want to get along. Banksy

Banksy Self Portrait Stencil Painting

More on Famous British Artist Banksy

How has Banksy influenced your art making? Is he one of your favorite famous British grafitti artists? Let us know what you think about Banksy in the comments below. Is his real name Robin Gunningham? Robert Del Naja? Robin Banks?

Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: Jean Michel Basquiat ||| Keith Haring ||| Ron English ||| Damien Hirst, and other Famous British Artists.