Firstly, I discovered that this piece of wall art on the back of the Roundhouse, in Camden, has had a very chequered history, in her short life, for she is only a few years old, and already she has been talked about, photographed, tagged, added to, erased, vandalised and painted over at least once, in her short life...

She appeared in 2006, and was first written about, in the Bono-edited edition of the Independent newspaper, where it was claimed by that she was commissioned by that newspaper, which was later on denied very quickly, for fear of legal repercussions...

By Arifa Akbar

The "guerrilla" graffiti artist Banksy has spray-painted a striking, large-scale image entitled "Sweeping It Under The Carpet" on a wall in Chalk Farm, north London.

Commissioned by The Independent, the work can be seen as a metaphor for the West's reluctance to tackle issues such as Aids in Africa.

Banksy said yesterday that the commissioned piece was also about the democratisation of subjects in works of art.

"In the bad old days, it was only popes and princes who had the money to pay for their portraits to be painted," he said.

"This is a portrait of a maid called Leanne who cleaned my room in a Los Angeles motel. She was quite a feisty lady."

By the time a few months had gone by, the wall was completely covered in added graffiti of the worst kind, the kind that makes you really despair...this kind of graffiti is the wrong kind, as it is ugly, doesn’t say anything, and certainly doesn’t add anything other than scrawl to an otherwise clean surface, and covers over and vandalises a witty and well-executed piece of street-art that is already there...

Later on, he was vandalised, and had his head partially erased, here :-

Later on, the wall had been cleaned, of all the scrawly graffiti, and just had the maid sweeping everything under her carpet, as she had always done...all the local residents like her so much that even though she is essentially an illegal piece of vandalism, she is allowed to stay because she brightens everyone day up...which just goes to prove that local Councils in London can be understanding and listen to what the people actually want !!

However, they can be a bit over-zealous in their cleaning operations, because around the 31^st January, 2008, someone added a fine looking mantelpiece to the wall, only to have it removed a few days later by the Council due to health & safety concerns...even though it was only a few inches thick, and wouldn’t really trip anyone up !!

This work and a couple of other works around in other parts of London have been vandalised in the same way, with the same tag - "All the best – Vida"

From the Camden New Journal, an article by Simon Wroe :-

 "First the mantelpiece, then the maid – outcry as iconic Chalk Farm street art is obliterated
WHILE the Hawley Arms and the Lock Market burned in the fire on Saturday night, away from the spectators another Camden icon was being destroyed.
Banksy’s stencilled maid – long protected by both Camden Council and the Roundhouse, on whose wall she resides – was defaced beyond recognition by a rogue graffiti artist. It is thought to be beyond saving.
The whitewash attack in Regent’s Park Road was made under cover of darkness, with a sarcastic calling card wishing “All the Best – Vida” left spray-painted at the scene.
The actions of the mysterious “Vida” fly in the face of an unspoken law practised by council officials, which has seen Banksy’s street art preserved, even retouched, while all other artistic offerings on the same wall – the most recent a life-sized wooden mantelpiece – are swiftly removed.
Roundhouse chief executive Marcus Davey decried the destruction of a “visual arts icon”.
He said: “I not only love the work but I have seen a great many people come from far and wide to be photographed with her. I don’t know how much money it could have been worth but it was very special to the Roundhouse and it is a shame that whoever did this just covered it up with white paint rather than make some kind of credible artistic statement.”
Mr Davey’s disappointment was echoed by others. Carolyn Broadribb, a bartender at The Enterprise Pub opposite the Banksy site, said: “You don’t get proper graffiti in Camden apart from Banksy. There’s no thought put into most of it. The people who would do this are just stupid – they don’t know why Banksy is important. Let’s hope Banksy will come back and do it again.”
Jasper Harvey, 16, had come from Southend to go shopping and see the artwork.
He said: “People say it’s graffiti but it’s art. The maid was a landmark and looked much better than what’s here now.”
Belsize Park resident Daniel Joshua, who passes the maid on his way to work every day, said: “I did a double-take – it’s a local legend. It’s jealousy.”
It is not the first time the chambermaid has come under attack. Last year her face was scratched by vandals but later repaired, allegedly by Banksy himself.
It pales in comparison to the most recent attack though: a sorry-looking pair of shoes is now all that remains of the original art work by one of the UK’s most well-known artists, which would have been worth hundreds of thousands of pounds in the current Banksy-obsessed art market.
But fellow street artist Jef Aerosol, whose work also adorns the walls of Camden, believes the furore over Banksy is misguided.
He said: “Street art shouldn’t be forever. Painting on the walls is like a gift to the people, it shouldn’t have a value.
“Of course it’s dispiriting if you come the following day and it’s gone but don’t work on the street if you want your work to last forever.”


After the attack, Camden City Council must have had a really good go at restoring her, because we came along a few weeks later, and photographed her pretty much as she was before, and even though she is looking a little battered, and her face isn’t as clear as it was, at least she is still here !!

However, not everyone is always overjoyed to receive his attentions on their walls...

Another "Maid" was painted on the side of the White Cube Art Gallery, in Hoxton Square:-

She was painted out very quickly, ironically by the gallery itself – bet they’re kicking themselves now !!

You see, this is how well loved the works by Banksy are, here in London...here are two very recent paintings, which have appeared this year, both of which have been received with huge amounts of publicity in the press, and excitement on the part of the people whose buildings have been added to in this way !!

Firstly, here is the "Wallflower", in Pollard Street, near the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, in Hackney...typical of Banksy’s work, it utilises the yellow lines that are already there, and turns them into something else entirely...

For the first time it seems that Banksy has been caught in the act, but the photo isn’t clear enough to actually identify him, which surely must make him breathe a sigh of relief...and his spokesperson will neither confirm nor deny...

Later on the same month, this painting appeared on the side of a pharmacy, in Essex Road, Islington, North London...also utilising something that is already there, in this case, the fire alarm on the side of the building, and understandably, the owner of the pharmacy is ecstatic about this addition to his shop...

"I just walked into the shop on Monday and, lo and behold, there it was," he told the London Paper.

"I am absolutely delighted - I think it's just fantastic. I've heard how much these works can go for. We would consider selling the wall, but not the shop. I think anyone who would want to erase it is crazy. It's a piece of art."

This painting has probably increased the value of his shop by about £200,000 if you go by current Banksy values of the works that have been auctioned on E-bay...mind you, you would have to get it off the wall first...

That is exactly what has happened to this piece, entitled Old Skool:-

Although there was a fair amount os Internet speculation about what was happening under the hoardings, the wall painting was actually legitimately sold, by the owner of the wall, to an anonymous German Collector for £1000, who then had to pay £30,000 to have it removed very carefully and re-erected in his art gallery in Knightbridge, where it sold for £300,000...

Amazing !!!

SO WHO IS BANKSY ?

There have been so many attempts to unmask this secretive Guerrilla Artist, and none of them have ever been confirmed...the mobile phone picture of him at work is the most recent picture, but isn’t clear enough to identify him successfully...there have also been these two photos, taken at different times, but neither have ever been confirmed:

Banksy isn't just a graffiti artist, he is also getting very famous for his Art Pranks too...the best one, in my opinion, is when he planted one of his own artworks in a Display at the British Museum, alongside a fake label that matched the BM’s own, within the Exhibition, and it wasn’t discovered for three days !!!

Stone-age man with shopping trolley !!

Here’s the relevant news article from the London Evening Standard:-

Aisle be! Shopping trolley on rock fools art experts

Simply marvellous – this amuses me greatly !!!

He has also managed to get his works into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, and London’s Natural History Museum in recent years..

Banksy is popularly thought to have come from Bristol, and there are certainly many works of his in evidence there...

This is the most recent addition to Bristol landscape, painted, in Park Street, on the side of the Relate Marriage Guidance Centre...entitled "Caught in the Act", it says a whole lot about his anarchic sense of humour...

There are many, many Banksy pieces all over London, Bristol, and a few other places around the World – New York and L.A. both have their share of Banksy pieces, and even Melbourne has one piece which has survived because he is not well known there at the time, and no-one knows what it is, or who it’s by...

He went off to Israel, when the highly illegal wall was being built around the Palestinian Territories a few years ago, and left nine calling cards, all along the length of this structure...

Here are a few of them:-

So many paintings by Banksy have been painted over, and lost, by over-zealous anti-graffiti squads from various Councils around London, but now, they are starting to be preserved, as these Councils are getting to realise just how valuable they are in the current Art market...here a few of the many paintings that are nowhere to be seen these days...

The Cash Machine Grab was painted in May last year, in two places, Roseberry Avenue, Clerkenwell, which has suffered the same fate as the Chalk Farm Maid, being vandalised in the same way:-

The other version, in Exmouth Market, Finsbury has now been buffed off, in other words removed by the Council...for shame !!

Other Banksy works around London include the "TV Out the Window" in Old Street, City of London, which is still there:-
 

A whole series of Rat stencils, including my favourite, " Red Carpet Rat-hole", which used to grace the Southwark Bridge underpass, and is, sadly, no longer there:

"Toxic rat" also buffed:-

And the "Roller-painting Rat", also gone, I believe:-

This "Watering-can Girl" appeared at a gas-station in L.A....

This wonderful example was painted over a previously buffed piece of Banksy art, depicting one of his rats, which you can vaguely see underneath the paint-job...go Banksy !!

Well, my own feelings on this matter are that it seems to be Human Nature to decorate things with your own signature, as a way of leaving your own mark on things, and things have been this way ever since ancient Roman tims...there has always been graffiti !!

However, it seems to me that there is Good graffiti and Bad graffiti, and even though most graffiti artists and crews will whinge to death about there being one rule for Banksy and one rule for the rest, the fact is that there really are two kinds of Graffiti...so deal with it !!
Probably like most of you, I am sick to death of seeing the Bad graffiti, like this :-

Ugly, scrawl that everyone hates...and is a scourge on walls all over the World !! I hate it, you hate it everyone hates it, except the moronic graffiti crews who leave it...

However, there is also the Good Graffiti, meaning stuff like this:-

Banksy’s work is probably the best example of this kind, and the simple reason that Banksy’s work is being kept, renovated, repainted, and renewed, bought and sold and generally valued for what it is, is because it consists of witty, clever, often politically anarchical, statements on how he sees the World, and he is loved by the General Public for it...

In fact the only people who appear to really hate Banksy are other graffiti artists, who are either jealous of his popularity, and the prices his works are now commanding, or who simply don’t get it !! All they care about is why Banksy’s works get the praise and theirs don’t...

As soon as they come up with work as good as this, they will be as loved by the Public as Banksy is...and maybe reap the same rewards !! Graffiti can be excellent, but can we please have more of the good kind and just a little less of the useless stuff that spoils everything, everywhere !!!

Besides which, Banksy has had his share of works buffed out...all over London, there are sites which once carried a Banksy work, which have now been cleaned...several Councils are absolutely unrepentant about cleaning anything by Banksy, or anyone else, that appears illegally on any of their walls, seeing him as just another illegal graffiti artist, who is defacing their property....

So what do you all think ?

Is Banksy the great artist that the current Art Market seems to think he is ?

Or is he just another Graffiti Artist, like any other, but who has simply got lucky?...