Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

The Banksy Liang En is talking about is a British graffiti artist born in Bristol, England in 1974. His work is inspired by the real-life realities of Bristol's underclass artists and musicians.

In other words, these works take satirical criticism as their theme and involve all aspects of life, such as politics, culture, morality and other common situations in daily life.

In terms of artistic style, his street graffiti combines scribblings in daily life with unique stencil printing technology, gradually forming his own style.

From 1992 to 1994, Banksy embarked on his own artistic path in his hometown of Bristol and became a freehand graffiti artist.

It was at this time that he created art using stencils, conveying messages through common images including images of rats, apes, police officers, soldiers, children and old men.

This creation continued for many years. It was not until 2002 that his creations were exhibited for the first time, and it was only then that he began to truly become famous.

When the famous American pop singer Christine Aguilera purchased the original painting of "gay" Queen Victoria along with two other Banksy paintings for 25,000 pounds, the auction record for Banksy's art works was set in 2006 A new high was reached on October 19th:

It was a set of six silk portraits of supermodel Kiss Moss, similar in style to Andy Warhol's portraits of Marilyn Monroe;

It was sold at a Sotheby's auction in London for 50,400 pounds, which was five times higher than the auction's reserve price.

Then at the same auction, Banksy's "Monro Lisa" with a green and red frame was bought by an interested person for 57,600 pounds.

In December, Max Forster, a columnist for CNN International in London, began calling the whirlwind the "Banksy effect," to describe the street-level obscurity behind his personal success. The artist finally gradually attracted widespread attention from society.

One of the most famous paintings was sold in 2018. "Girl Holding a Balloon", a famous work by Banksy, a mysterious figure in the British graffiti world, was sold at Sotheby's auction house in London for 1.04 million pounds.

The price itself was already astonishing, but what was even more surprising happened after the hammer fell. The painting on the scene actually slipped out of the frame and was cut into thin strips by the built-in paper cutting device.

However, due to a problem with the machine design, a paper jam resulted in only half of the pattern being shattered, while the other half remained in the frame.

The incident was a sensation, and as the artist admitted his act of sabotage, Girl with Balloon became the first work of art "created" at auction.

What's even more exaggerated is that this is just the beginning. As the painting, which was renamed "Love in the Trash Can", became more famous after repeated publicity.

On October 14, 2021, this painting was once again offered at auction. It was hammered down in London for a sky-high price of 18.58 million pounds, which not only broke the auction record for Banksy's works, but also far exceeded the pre-event estimate.

The core reason why this artist is so famous is because of the uniqueness of his works. Those works are inspired by the real life conditions of Bristol's lower-class artists and musicians, and they are all based on satirical criticism.

The content of the works involves all aspects of life, such as politics, culture, and morality. His street graffiti combines scribblings in daily life with unique stencil printing technology, gradually forming his own style.

What's more important is that Banksy is a mysterious artist. He himself has always been invisible and anonymous, never selling photos of his street graffiti works, and never putting his works on exhibition cabinets in commercial galleries.

For this reason, art auctioneers tried to secure the location of his graffiti, even leaving the winning bidder with a lot of demolition problems.

But on the other hand, Banks isn't shy about self-promotion. Although his creations do not respect copyright, he has art agents representing his works. Although his creative process has always been kept secret, he has published several books explaining his creative ideas.

So from a certain point of view, he should be a person with a high artistic level but who knows how to manage himself. Of course, this is much better than those guys who just rely on hype but have a bag of chaff in their belly.

"No -" After hearing Liang En's question, the middle-aged man quickly denied it subconsciously, but at this time he also looked at Liang En who had taken off his mask through the light of the street lamp and recognized his face. identity.

"Wait, I think I know you. Are you the author of the famous sunflower in the exhibition at the Grand Palace? I've seen your photo at the booth before." He took out his phone and showed the photo.

Because this painting is a new oil painting painted with modern dyes, Liang En did not prohibit everyone from using flash when taking photos.

What's more important is that he opened up most of the copyrights of these oil paintings, as long as they are not used in the commercial field, which also greatly speeds up the spread.

So in just one day, the high-resolution picture of this oil painting spread everywhere and caused a sensation in the art circle. Naturally, artists like Banksy also obtained such a picture.

Although in terms of oil paintings, Banksy prefers to paint spoof oil paintings. In 2005, he even created a spoof of Van Gogh's painting "Sunflowers at a Gas Station". This painting is the third most expensive work by Banksy at auction. It was sold by Christie's in New York for more than 14 million U.S. dollars, which also reflects the quality of this work from a certain perspective.

Different from Van Gogh's sunflowers, this picture shows the withering and falling stage of the sunflower. The sunflower, which originally symbolized vitality, became dying and its petals were scattered all over the ground.

According to some art critics, the artist humorously used withered gas station flowers to satirize the pollution of art and nature caused by consumerism, and criticized society's indifference.

But no matter what, someone who can draw such a picture must have done a deep study of Van Gogh's original sunflowers. At least he should have studied the original oil painting for a week or two and then read a lot of information.

So after seeing the sunflower painting painted by Liang En, he immediately realized how good the oil painting of that sunflower was, so he was naturally impressed.

"Ah, Mary is really exaggerating." After hearing about the placement of his photo in the booth, Liang En muttered, then nodded and admitted.

"Yes, those oil paintings were all painted by me, including the sunflower oil painting you mentioned, and I have publicly demonstrated my painting skills in a salon before. If you are interested, you should be able to see what someone took. .”

"Ah, are you really Mr. Liang? I am Banksy. The oil paintings you created are really great. I believe that if you hadn't specially used modern dyes and then aged the oil paintings a little, I would have You would even think it was an authentic painting by Van Gogh."

After Liang En admitted his identity, the middle-aged artist across from him suddenly became excited. As a real artist, he knew how powerful Liang En's works of art were, so he also admitted his identity.