Banksys art work is the most popular art on canvas in the UK.

Oct. 30, 2011 - PRLog -- The elusive street artist Banksy has been producing his iconic stencils for nearly 20 years now. His previous scope of work has skyrocketed in recent years as more and more Banksys are discovered across the world. The secretive nature of his often illegal artwork has meant that as of yet there is an unknown number of pieces. Many of his most iconic images have however already been identified, and these pieces have been replicated many thousands of times over to don the walls of fans worldwide.

In recent years, Banksy has moved into other forms of media in an effort to present his artwork. In the summer of 2009 he opened a hugely successful exhibition in Bristol which reportedly received over 300,000 visitors in 12 weeks. His film “Exit Through the Gift Shop” also won many plaudits and was even nominated for the Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars.

It is however his poignant street work that he is most well known for. In 2009 he was embroiled in a graffiti war with an artist known as King Robbo which centred on a series of stencils in London: AristocRat, Global Warming, Fisher Boy, and Wallpaperer. The war began as Banksy allegedly painted over one of King Robbo’s works on a London Underground platform.

Although little of the war received much media attention, the war has allegedly devalued Banksys reputation in the graffiti underworld, with one of the paintings depicting Top Cat leaning on a gravestone marking “RIP Banksys Career”. Whilst Fisher Boy was defaced to symbolise his catch becoming “Street Cred”, thereby implying that it has become river/sewer floatsam.

This has however done little to impact on Banksys critical acclaim. One of his works originally sprayed at a 2003 street art project in Berlin entitled “Every Picture Tells a Lie”, has recently been retrieved by a Berlin gallery. Restorers removed upwards of a dozen layers of paint and will be on display until October 22 2011. This is a common occurrence with Banksys art, as earlier this year one of his early works; a gorilla in a pink mask, was painted over by the new owners of North Bristol Social Club but later restored.

Although many of his artworks are created fully realising their temporary lifespan, (such as his Guantanamo inmate at Disneyland) serious effort goes into preserving his most famous works. His best though, such as his West Bank murals, are regularly reproduced as  HYPERLINK "http://www.canvasline.co.uk/catalogue/digital-canvas-gall..." canvas pictures for posterity. This sub-culture industry has rapidly expanded in recent years as HYPERLINK "http://www.canvasline.co.uk" art on canvas became a popular interior design feature. To many in the business he has ushered in HYPERLINK "http://www.canvasline.co.uk/catalogue/digital-canvas-gallery/banksy-canvas-wall-art/"  canvas art UK, and he was voted Living Britain of the Year in 2007.