“All graffiti is low-level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They've been used to start revolutions and to stop wars.”
—Banksy
Immediately recognisable and instantly touching, Banksy’s Girl with Balloon is an icon of the twenty-first century. It presents a graffiti-stencilled image of a young child reaching out to a heart-shaped balloon, but, the balloon remains just out of her grasp, and the scene is swept by a gust of wind. It is ambiguous as to whether the girl has intentionally released the balloon, evoking an endearing image of childhood freedom, or if she has accidentally lost her grip on the dangling string and is watching in despair as the balloon slips into oblivion. Either way, when the artwork was graffitied on London’s Waterloo Bridge (later removed by the local authorities), Banksy paired it with the phrase "There is always hope". Because of this, the work has come to represent both childhood innocence and the importance of maintaining hope, even in the darkest of times.
Girl with Balloon is one of Banksy’s many works that focus on the theme of childhood. The artist utilises the pure, moral virtue associated with children to turn a mirror on society, foregrounding its faults and injustices. Banksy frequently combines images of childhood and its closely connected notions of both purity and nostalgia with sombre and despondent themes of war, political division, and mass-surveillance. In doing so, the tenderness of the child’s image evokes an increasingly powerful and provocative message. Viewers of Girl with Balloon cannot help but feel empathy for the young child’s loss. But, at the same time, her out-reached hand embodies a determined and admirable longing for something better. For this reason, the image has become a universal symbol of optimism.
“There is nothing more dangerous than someone who wants to make the world a better place.”
—BanksyRecognised as one of the artist’s foremost symbols for more than a decade, and voted the nation’s favourite artwork in 2017, the image once again came to the forefront of the public’s attention in 2018, when a 2006 framed copy of the artwork came to auction and sold for a record price. Adding further momentum to the event, the work began self-destructing just a few moments after the closing bid, by means of a concealed mechanical paper shredder Banksy had built into the frame bottom. Marking auction history with an unprecedented performative quality, Girl with Balloon became an icon for the unpredictable developments of contemporary markets, whilst simultaneously entering the realm of popular culture.
Maintaining his anonymity after decades in the public eye, Banksy is the world’s most renowned mystery man, and a trailblazer that continues to catapult the art historical cannon in new directions. Revolutionising the way street art is perceived and redefining “art” itself, works by Banksy can be found in prestigious public collections including the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Most recently, in summer 2024, Banksy created nine stencilled graffiti works of animals across London. Revealed day-by-day, they included Monkeys swinging across a railway bridge at Brick Lane, a howling wolf on a satellite dish in Peckham, piranhas swimming around a phone box in Ludgate Hill, and a gorilla that appears to be freeing animals from behind a fence at the London Zoo. Deceptively simple and strikingly thought-provoking, Banksy has captured our attention and imagination once again.
