WEEK 2 - Analysing and researching Banksy's work

Valentine's Day Mascara - Banksy

Bransky - Valentine's Day Mascara - 2023

1 - What is it ?

The piece of art that is seen above is a street art design.

2 - How do I know it ?

It can be known by the painting on the wall which is related to street or urban art, the method used to do that which is the stencil, a method that is conventional to the street art and the fact that the autor is Banksy, who is well known to be an street art artist.

3 - What message is it reflecting ?

What I would like to do is deconstruct this piece of art in order to reconstruct it later. These are the signs that I consider to be the most significants :

• The woman's face

Denotation : disfigured, with a broken tooth, a swollen eye and a bruise on her cheek.

Connotation : she is enduring domestic slavery or violence.

• The outfit, the hairstyle and the gloves

Denotation: look like 1900's women

Connotation: the woman is a housewife or house keeper that is doing domestic duties

• The feet

Denotation: man's feet, in the air, black shoes that are worn by businessmen or workers

Connotation: the man got murdered. It looks like the woman was getting rid of him.

ANCHORAGE

After deconstruction, I'm going to gather all the informations in a form of anchorage in order to give you the main idea of this piece. The painting is reflecting a woman that was being violented by a man and she is now getting rid of him after taking her revenge by murdering him before pulling his lifeless body in the fridge.

This piece of art is made by Banksy, an anonymous but talented urban artist. His work's techniques started by the grafitti method but changed to stencil method. He was applying his art almost everywhere such as walls, bridges, carparks... but it is still applied on the street. An important thing to notice about Banksy is that he is against the inctellectual property system. This street artists feels like there is no needed to apply the notion of copyright and considers that everybody can feel free to use someone's work since it is exposed in a public place. (Griffith Law Review - Volume 31 - 2022). That's how he said "any advert in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use." (Banksy - Wall and piece - 2006).

References:

• https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/gallery/sad-state-banksys-bristol-valentine-8154607

• Griffith Law Review - Volume 31 - 2022

• Banksy - Wall and piece - 2006