You’ve been Banksy’d

Its come to something hasn’t it when your name threatens to become a verb? Possibly the ultimate accolade, it is certainly a sure sign that the number of people in the world who not only know your name, but understand exactly what it is that you do, has reached a point beyond which the thing itself cannot be mentioned without your name coming up. So it is with Banksy and Street/Graffiti/Urban art.

Nothing happens in this counter-culture world come gallery establishment staple without a reference to Banksy. He is the ringleader, the mysterious trickster who has achieved total commercial sell-out, whilst retaining his iconic, quasi-revolutionary status.  His film made the Oscars, and his gallery shows attract the overnight camping queues more usually seen on Oxford Street before a free giveaway. Yet, and yet, a new Banksy-attributed graffito sets the world alight with wonder excitement and speculation.  

This is because Banksy really has dared to dream the impossible dream. He has sold out commercially, his work even selling online through people like myartbroker.co.uk, and somehow managed to stay good. And by good I mean innovative, creative, bold, exciting.  Top of his game and secretive as ever.

And most recently he’s been doing it in Camden. Jeffrey Street by all (uncorroborated ) accounts. Check out the image above.

So back to ‘Banksied’, or ‘Banksy’d’ if you’d prefer. The term looks likely to enter the lexicon as a shorthand for ‘something cool and illegal done in the street/urban environment somewhere in the world in the name of art, with a mushy, indistinct but nonetheless political message’.

This Soviet-era bronze statue of the Russian Red Army “liberating” the Bulgarian masses was recently ‘Banksied’ when some brave and amusing soul painted the figures overnight into American superheroes and Ronald MacDonald.  Pretty funny. Bet Banksy wishes he’d thought of it, but its OK, he still gets a mention. 

Artist of the Month - The wonderful Caroline Shotton

Yay for Caroline Shotton! We’ve chosen her as our inaugural artist of the Month for September at myartbroker because she is wonderful, and also because she continually tops both our sales and wanted lists.

This may be the artist that Jonathan Jones of the Guardian derides as owing her popularity merely to the public’s wish to stick two fingers up at the Art cognoscenti, (see link below) but we think he’s missing the point. You see, Caroline Shotton’s touching and amusing studies of cows inspire real love and dedication in the people who buy her work. This is no cynical cash cow (ho ho!), as suggested when Shotton’s collection of cow paintings inspired by the Masters (Cow With a Pearl Earring, The Smooch, Moona Lisa, et al) were released in 2007. At the time there was much bandying about of the figure £3 million, as if it were a crime to profit from art at all, and specifically from art that isn’t arcane and difficult. Caroline Shotton’s work gives real pleasure. The fact that Shotton makes a decent living by painting these cow paintings, shouldn’t be held against her, and nor should the fact that the prints and paintings hang on thousands of domestic walls up and down the country and make thousands of people smile every day, without anyone having to try too hard to understand them.

At Myartbroker, the Caroline Shotton phenomenon rolls on. It is possible on the website to place a wanted ad for any edition that is sold out. We receive many requests from customers looking for specific pieces of work, perhaps a sold out limited edition print that they missed out on, or an original painting by a specific artist. We act on all of these requests, and can sometimes find the piece very quickly, and match up buyer and seller. If not, we continue looking, and add the request to our wanted list. At the moment, amongst other things, we have registered buyers for 'Blue Mooon', 'Mooon River', 'Wallflower', 'Marmoote', 'Over the Mooon', and 'Harvest Mooon', all sold out Caroline Shotton Limited Edition prints on canvas! If you have a piece of art you’d like to sell, its very easy, just click on the link to 'How To Sell Art'. Also check out our recently listed available Caroline Shottons, 'Twinkle Twinkle’, ‘Meet the Famooly’, ‘Me and Moo’ and don’t miss the original painting, ‘Purple Haze’.