The Artist of Our Times

It’s hard to say which artist best sums up our age, because there are so many different facets of life here in the beginning of the 21^st century. We have a huge variety of lifestyles, cultures, beliefs, and attitudes, and it would be impossible for one artist to document our age without leaving something out. One artist whose work documents a unique feature of our time, however, is the British street artist Banksy.

            Banksy uses stencils and spray paint to create images on walls, billboards, and sidewalks. His work is a lot more sophisticated than common graffiti, but all of it is done illegally and it usually ends up being painted over by local governments. Some of Banksy’s artwork is simply meant to be humorous or visually pleasing, but a lot of it carries a political message. For example, on piece done by Banksy featured a rioting protester throwing a bouquet of flowers, another one a rat wielding an RPG.

            What Banksy’s artwork shows about our time is the strong current of counter-culture and political activism that exists now more than any time in the past. From the Hippie movement in the 60’s to the Arab Spring and the civil war in Syria; protests, riots, and revolutions have become an almost everyday occurrence in modern times. Banksy represents this cultural thread not only through the content of his work but by how it is executed: as willful acts of vandalism.