Fifth Banksy mural appears in five days in London
For the fifth time in as many consecutive days, legendary street artist Banksy has unveiled a mysterious new piece of work in London.
The latest piece has been displayed on the corner of Pretoria Avenue and Northcote Road in Walthamstow above the fish and chip restaurant, Bonners Fish Bar. It depicts the silhouette of two pelicans eating fish, which is appropriate considering where Banksy chose to display his latest piece of work.
The ongoing exhibition has been dubbed Bansky’s ‘London Zoo’ exhibit with each of the works unveiled thus far has been centred around animals placed in urban areas of the city. The artist has been confirming he is the artist behind the pieces of art by sharing images of the work on his Instagram albeit without a caption or explanation.
The first work in the series, unveiled on August 5th, depicted a stencil of a goat perched on a ledge just underneath a CCTV camera on Kew Bridge. Following the discovery of the work, Banksy followed the goat piece up with two silhouettes of elephants reaching out to each other across blocked-out windows in Chelsea.
Then, on August 8th, a howling wolf on a satellite dish in Peckham in Banksy’s usual stencil style appeared on Rye Lane. Unfortunately, within a matter of hours, opportunistic locals had taken it down and stolen the Banksy. No arrests have been made yet by the Metropolitan Police, but they are aware of the situation, and are currently investigating.
Thankfully, the same won’t be happening in Walthamstow, due to it a fish and chip shop being harder to steal than a satellite dish. Locals are also thrilled that Banksy chose their area to make his message with one local resident telling the BBC: “It’s genuinely really exciting. A friend messaged me early this morning telling me it’s appeared on my street so we arranged to come down as soon as we could.”
The Walthamstow local also said of the poignant location, which is of vast importance to the community in E17, “It’s a bit of an icon of the local area, so I’m sure that’s why it’s been chosen. It’s been here a long time and it’s well loved.”
The exact meaning behind the ‘London Zoo’ remains largely unknown at this stage. It has been theorised that Banksy, known for making political statements through his art, is perhaps commenting on the recent far-right riots which have engulfed cities around the nation – comparing rioters to animals. However, this is yet to be proven. Furthermore, it remains to be seen how much longer the exhibit will continue to unfurl itself.
