A bucket of white paint ruined everything. So, all that remains of Banksy‘s latest mural is a carousel of photos that the graffiti artist shared on social media to claim ownership, even though the unmistakable style left little room for doubt. The work appeared on the morning of Sunday, March 17, on a side wall of a building in London, located on Hornsey Road (Finsbury Park neighborhood): a splash of bright green to simulate the foliage of a majestic bare tree located right in front of the wall.
Once again, the artist has shown an ability to bend perspective to his will, giving us illusory optical effects that blur the boundaries between reality and fiction. As Stefano Antonelli, who curates Italian exhibitions on the world’s most famous graffiti artist, explained to Ansa, Banksy’s works are never reduced to a single meaning but must be explored through different interpretations. The bright green, for example, could be a reference to the symbolic color of St. Patrick’s Day, celebrated by the English on March 17.
On the other hand, the entire work seems like a dedication to ecology, an environmentalist message, an invitation to safeguard urban greenery endangered by pollution and poor conservation. Notably, at the base of the wall, Banksy has impressed the stencil of a young woman wielding a pressure sprayer and looking up proudly at the way the paint spreads on the wall, giving life (figuratively) to the tree. The latter, besides being leafless, shows evident signs of pollarding, a pruning technique considered harmful by many arborists.
