The elusive Bristol street artist Banksy appears to have been captured on CCTV painting one of seven works of art he’s created in war-torn Ukrainian towns.
Footage of an artist spraying what appears to be one of Banksy's new works, created in the bomb-hit town of Irpin, is currently being shared on TikTok in Ukraine.
Bristol Live broke the news that Banksy was in the Ukrainian city of Borodyanka last week before the artist himself confirmed it with an image on his official Instagram account.
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One of the works by Banksy in nearby Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv 20 miles closer to the capital than Borodyanka, showed a dancer in a neck brace, and was sprayed on the side of a bombed out building near a main road through the city.
The grainy video has a time stamp as if filmed on a CCTV camera, and it’s thought the film was first uploaded by Ukrainian TikTok user ‘this_irpin_grisha’.
Their caption states in Ukrainian that the video was first uploaded to YouTube, and asks if Banksy was ‘in the lens of CCTV’ in the town of Irpin. The video, which has been edited, shows a man in a face mask, black jacket and trousers walking towards a wall with a bag.
He gets out a spray can and begins spraying on the wall. The video cuts to show the half-completed work, with the artist occasionally looking over his shoulder towards a road where cars are driving past.
The final touches to the artwork - on the video at least - show the artist using black paint, and the final image shows the work completed. The wall shown being worked on with the artwork of the dancer in the neck brace does appear to be the same wall as the one in the images of the final artwork that has been confirmed by Banksy.
But questions remain about whether the man painting the work is Banksy himself, and whether he knew he was being filmed by CCTV at the time he carried out the work - the release of the footage could itself be part of Banksy’s work out in Ukraine, rather than an inadvertent slip.
Banksy has been captured on camera painting before - most notably in New York - and he’s not averse to revealing himself in his own work - albeit obscured.
Videos posted on Banksy’s own Instagram account showed the artist himself painting works on a London tube train, the side of Reading prison and in Great Yarmouth in the last couple of years, although every time the film has been carefully edited not to show Banksy’s face.
Read next:
- Banksy confirmed to be in Ukraine after street artwork speculation
- World reacts as Banksy artwork appears in war-torn Ukraine
- The most ridiculous theories about who Banksy is
- Banksy responds to speculation as Stockwood residents spot new framed artwork
- Banksy claims Reading Prison art with Bob Ross video
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