"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."
Banksy's artwork is characterised by striking images, often combined with slogans. His work often engages political themes, satirically critiquing war, capitalism, hypocrisy and greed. His anarchistic, even nihilistic, approach is combined with a dark humour with a playful and childish imagery as a result. Whether plastering cities with his trademark parachuting rat or painting imagined openings in the West Bank barrier in Israel, Banksy creates street art with an irreverent wit and an international reputation that precedes his anonymous identity.
Banksy has crafted a signature, immediately identifiable graphic style - and a recurring cast of animals, cops, soldiers, children, and celebrities - through which he critically examines contemporary issues of consumerism, political authority, terrorism, and the status of art and its display. A common technique in Banksy's art is furthermore to play on the perspective and edges of the item on which he is stencilling. Examples include 'trapdoors', 'criminal rats', 'photo opportunities' and 'peeing soldiers’.
Notwithstanding his succes, up to this day Banksy has not revealed his identity. Which is probably due to the controversy surrounding his work and the political and social engagement it entails.