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Once his first major free hand had been produced in 1999, the work entitled ‘ Mild Mild West‘, his progression to cultural icon had started. At this time, Banksy was a freehand graff artist and only used the odd stencil for certain pieces of work.

What is a little less known fact, is that Banksy was an active member of the Bristol-based graffiti scene from about 1990 working with fellow local graff artists as part of the DryBreadZ Crew. It was almost inevitable that when Banksy arrived on the street-art scene in early 2000 that he would be compared both favourably and unfavourably to Blek. Blek was quoted as saying that he choose the rat stencil as it seemed to him to be a symbol of the urban environment that was to be his canvas furthermore, he said that rats are marginalised members of society and that they were the only animals said to survive an apocalypse.

At this point, the small black rats that are symbolic of Blek le Rat first adorned the walls of the 14th Arrondissement along with bananas, running red men and a self-portrait. It wasn’t until late 1981 that Blek started to create his own work, however, he encountered challenges the ‘American style graffiti’ didn’t integrate well with the old architecture of Paris as that’s the essence of graff art – social context and the surrounding environment.Īs a student of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts Blek had studied classical forms of art and arrived the idea of using the old technique of pochoirs(stencils). Blek was first inspired by graffiti on a trip to New York in 1972 at the time, graff art was only just in its infancy. Banksy has been quoted as saying: “Every time I think I’ve painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek le Rat has done it as well.

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