Banksy in Watford? Hmm, I don’t think so!

The Watford Observer reported a sighting of a possible new Banksy in the local town centre on Monday. The paper retained a sound stance of sitting on the fence on whether it was a Banksy or not but 47 year old local IT Security engineer Charles London thought it “definitely…genuine”. One look at the picture in the article made me certain it wasn’t a Banksy but seeing as I was in the town today to see an old friend I tracked it down all the same. In real life it was much larger than expected and seemed to be hand painted rather than stenciled onto the wall. More interestingly I found another similarly styled figure nearby in a more public location which was in my opinion a much more technically accomplished piece. Tagged with the name ‘matey’ it seemed to have been completed freehand and showed a nice line of shading (especially in the detail of the face). Maybe over time we’ll get to hear more about the artist and their reasons….

Matey “It’s The Queens Orders”

Detail of ‘Matey’ piece in Watford

The original artwork reported in the paper