''A Great British Spraycation'' are a series of 2021 artworks by the anonymous British

street art Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art. Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graff ...

ist Banksy in various

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

n towns in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Pieces appeared in

Great Yarmouth Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...

, Oulton Broad,

Lowestoft Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the most easterly UK settlement, it is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and sou ...

, Gorleston-on-Sea, Cromer, and

King's Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is located north of London, north-east of Peterborough, no ...

. The artworks were confirmed as authentic via an elaborate three minute video posted on Banksy's

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

account and have further been revealed to be named en totale, ''A Great British Spraycation''.

Works

The series comprises the following works: *Three children near a boat structure with the tagline "We're all in the same boat" in Nicholas Everitt Park, Oulton Broad,

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

. The boat structure was removed by Oulton Broad Parish Council over fears it could cause flooding as it was blocking a drain and rain had been forecast; the council said the structure would be put back. *A large mural of a

seagull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, m ...

on the end of a terrace in

, Suffolk, appearing to try and eat 'chips' (strips of insulation material) from a skip. *A child with a

crowbar A crowbar, also called a wrecking bar, pry bar or prybar, pinch-bar, or occasionally a prise bar or prisebar, colloquially, in Britain and Australia sometimes called a jemmy or jimmy (also called jemmy bar), gooseneck, or pig foot, is a tool ...

next to a lifted paving slab and a sandcastle on London Road North, Lowestoft. The work was removed from its original location by the owner of the building in November 2021. *A rat in a deckchair drinking a

cocktail A cocktail is an alcoholic mixed drink. Most commonly, cocktails are either a combination of spirits, or one or more spirits mixed with other ingredients such as tonic water, fruit juice, flavored syrup, or cream. Cocktails vary widely across ...

at the bottom of Links Hill, North Beach, Lowestoft. The cocktail glass was placed below a pipe that often drips with sewage waste. *A couple dancing and a man playing the

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

on top of a bus stop on Admiralty Road,

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

''(pictured above)''. *Graffiti on a miniature stable saying "Go big or go home" with Banksy's name and a rat at Merrivale Model Village, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. *An arcade claw machine above a bench on the seafront at Gorleston, Norfolk. It was subsequently altered by the addition of six

teddy bear A teddy bear is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in the U.S. and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early 20th century, the teddy bear, ...

s stencilled beneath the claw and the words "Banksy Collaboration Emo" alongside it, reportedly by a local artist. The work has since been defaced. *Two children being flung into the air on an inflatable boat while the adult who pumps it up is drinking at Gorleston model yacht pond. This artwork was removed by

Great Yarmouth Borough Council Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements * Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size * Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent People * List of people known as "the Great" *Artel Great (born ...

due to its proximity to the area where a child died after being thrown from an inflatable in 2018. The council said it hoped the work could be restored and placed elsewhere. *A group of

hermit crabs Hermit crabs are anomuran decapod crustaceans of the superfamily Paguroidea that have adapted to occupy empty scavenged mollusc shells to protect their fragile exoskeletons. There are over 800 species of hermit crab, most of which possess an a ...

, one in a shell and holding a sign saying "Luxury rentals only" in Cromer, Norfolk. *The alteration of a statue of Frederick Savage in Guanock Place,

, Norfolk with a model ice cream and a tongue.

Response

In a statement,

said that it "may be the case" that the art was in support of the area's bid to become the UK City of Culture in 2025.

Paul Gough Paul Gough is a British academic, writer, painter, broadcaster and the current Principal and Vice Chancellor of Arts University Bournemouth. Biography Gough was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School. He graduated from the Polytechnic Wolverhampt ...

said the works were "very sophisticated" and "show an artist at the top of his game". The art garnered some criticism, with the works being called "derivative" and "too tame and too cliched to make a difference".

References

Works by Banksy 2021 paintings Murals in the United Kingdom Vandalized works of art in the United Kingdom {{21C-painting-stub

Works

Response

See also

References