Tattoo Ideas: Banksy Graffiti

The works of graffiti artist only known as Bansky (an anonymous Englishman whose real name may be Robert Banks) first began popping up on city walls in England in the late 1990s. Allegedly born in Bristol in 1974, Banksy is a freehand artist who later evolved into graffiti stenciling at the turn of the new millennium. Although he has given numerous interviews and published several books, the true identity of Banksy is unknown. The work for which he is famous invariably includes anti-war, anti-establishment and pro-freedom images. Some of his most notorious stencils include a girl hugging a bomb, a girl wearing a gas mask, and two male police officers embracing and kissing each other. Banksy's images have been replicated as tattoos as well, the most notable being his famous "Girl with Balloon" seen here, featuring a young girl losing her grip on a solitary red balloon.

Banksy is reknowned for going after media moguls as well. His spoof on Paris Hilton in August 2006 involved confiscating 500 copies of her debut CD and replacing the inserts with his own cover art. He renamed the tracks "Why am I Famous?" and "What am I For?" and altered the glamour shots of Ms. Hilton so that she appeared as a topless, lifeless mannequin and with the head of a canine in lieu of her own.

A trickster and prankster as well as a talented artist, Banksy pulled off another stunt in 2004 when he created a series of £10 notes which substituted the Queen's head with Princess Diana's and changed the words "Bank of England" to "Banksy of England". Other times he decorated an entire corridor at the Carlton Arms Hotel in NYC, entered a penguin enclosure at the London Zoo and spray painted "We're bored of fish", and stenciled "This is not a photo opportunity" on places scattered throughout London that are, in fact, popular photo opportunity spots. Despite the fact that his face has never been seen, Banksy pulls in a pretty penny with his various artforms. In 2006 he sold a painting of Queen Victoria depicted as a lesbian to pop princess Christina Aguilera and a set of six silk-screen prints portraying supermodel Kate Moss in an Andy Warhol style for £50,400. Banksy's stencil of a Mona Lisa with green paint dripping from her eyes also sold at that same Kate Moss auction for an equally obscenely high amount.

Banksy's images translate perfectly for the sake of tattooing due to their use of predominantly black ink, with splashes of red thrown in here and there.