Context

Banksy uses his artwork to serve as social commentary on issues with contemporary society. This is what I have tried to replicate in my work by appropriating his distinct graffiti street-art style to serve my own purposes and communicate my message. Banksy has a powerful technique in which he not only paints the message, but also the person or persons who may be writing the message (an example of which is shown below). I tried to appropriate this technique and adapt it to my artwork as well because it adds much more meaning to the piece. Additionally, a lot of Banksy's work displays stenciled images in black with text in red (which can also be seen in the example below). This is another technique I adapted into my work to make it look more like Banksy's, and also because the bright red attracts the eye to the message. I chose to appropriate Banksy not only because he focuses on social and political issues, but also because one goal of this project is to make artwork which we could monetarily profit from, and Banksy look-alikes can often sell for quite a high price. 

See this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/22/fake-banksy_n_4142294.html