Banksy Claims New Fish Artwork on Central London Police Box

Banksy has confirmed he’s behind a new fish-themed artwork that has appeared on a police sentry box in the City of London. This piece marks the seventh animal-themed creation the elusive street artist has shared this week. Banksy posted a photo of these artworks on his Instagram at 1 PM today.

The artist seems to have used translucent spray paint on glass windows to create the design, giving the sentry box the appearance of a giant fish tank. Banksy posted an uncaptioned image of the new artwork, showing a police officer taking a photo of it.

This latest piece stands out from Banksy’s other dark silhouette images of a goat, elephants, monkeys, a wolf, pelicans, and a cat, which have been spotted in different parts of London since Monday.

Following the artwork’s appearance, two City of London police officers arrived to check out the design and took pictures from outside the box. An officer mentioned to the PA news agency that they were asked to investigate the artwork after it was detected on CCTV cameras.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Spooner of the City of London Police told PA: “We are aware of criminal damage to a City of London Police box in Ludgate Hill. We are liaising with the City of London Corporation, who own the police box.”

The new style led to some speculation about the authenticity of the piece, with a City of London worker noting that it didn’t seem like Banksy’s work. However, three Banksy fans from the West Midlands traveled to London over the weekend specifically to see Banksy’s new pieces. Before it was confirmed, one of the men expressed uncertainty about whether the fish design was by the iconic artist, although he mentioned they were planning to see a seal artwork elsewhere.

One fan, upon seeing the fish artwork, commented that it might be his favorite of all the pieces revealed this week, if it turned out to be a genuine Banksy. A local resident also visited the site, wanting to see the artwork before anything happened to it. The resident remarked, “I walked up here yesterday and I don’t remember seeing it; I think I would have noticed it. I like it, it’s got a charm to it somehow. It’s not in-your-face, it’s quite subtle.”

On Saturday, a sixth piece by Banksy—a stretching cat on a distressed advertising billboard—was removed from its location in north-west London only hours after it was revealed. Crowds booed as three men, who claimed to be hired by a contracting company, dismantled the billboard. One contractor, named Marc, revealed that they initially planned to take down the billboard on Monday but decided to expedite the removal to prevent anybody from “ripping it down and leaving it unsafe.” An officer at the scene reported that the billboard’s owner intended to donate it to an art gallery.

The cat artwork was the second piece to be removed that week, following the removal of a howling wolf painting from a satellite dish on a shop roof in Peckham, south London, less than an hour after it was unveiled. Witnesses saw three men removing it, with one witness claiming that he recorded the act, prompting one of the men to throw his phone onto a roof. A Banksy spokesperson mentioned that the artist does not endorse the theft of the wolf design and has no knowledge of the satellite dish’s current whereabouts.

The first piece in Banksy’s new animal-themed series, announced on Monday, features a goat with rocks falling beneath it, located near Kew Bridge in south-west London. By Tuesday, the artist added silhouettes of two elephants with their trunks stretched toward each other on the side of a building in Chelsea, west London. Following this, three monkeys were depicted swinging underneath a bridge over Brick Lane, near a vintage clothing shop in the bustling east London market area, close to Shoreditch High Street. The fifth design—a pair of pelicans snatching fish from a London chip shop sign—appeared in Walthamstow, east London, on Friday.

Source: PA News Agency