An icon of contemporary urban art. A street artist as subversive as he is capable of delivering powerful messages capable of shaking consciences. Over the past few years, Banksy has been all this and much more, managing to arouse enormous interest in his works as much as in his identity, which has always been jealously kept under wraps partly so that it was his art and nothing more that spoke for itself. Now, however, Reuters has reportedly uncovered Banksy’s true identity, with an investigation that started in villages on the outskirts of Kiev and came up with a name: that of David Jones.
“In late 2022, an ambulance stopped in front of a bombed apartment building. Three people got out. One was wearing a gray hoodie, another a baseball cap. Both had masks covering their faces. The third was more easily identifiable: he was not wearing a mask and had only one arm and two prosthetic legs, according to witnesses’ reports to Reuters,” the portal reads to explain how the investigation began, “The masked men took cardboard stencils from the ambulance and taped them to what had been an interior wall of an apartment before the Russians razed it to the ground. Then they pulled out cans of spray paint and got to work. Within minutes an absurd image appeared: a bearded man in a bathtub rubbing his back in the rubble.” The creator of such work was, of course, Banksy.
So after other works appeared in Ukraine, a journalist decided to travel to Horenka with some photos of graffiti artists often referred to as the author, showing them to locals to see if anyone was recognized. “Shortly thereafter,” Reuters continues, “we learned that a famous British musician-one of those rumored to be Banksy-had been spotted in Kiev, which gave us a hypothesis to investigate.” By interviewing insiders and experts in Banksy’s world, important documents and clues came to light in order to determine what his real identity was.
“Reuters has taken into account Banksy’s privacy claims and the fact that many of his fans wish him to remain anonymous. However, we concluded that the public has a deep interest in understanding the identity and career of a figure with his profound and enduring influence on culture, the art world, and international political discourse. In doing so, we applied the same principle that Reuters uses everywhere. Individuals and institutions that seek to shape social and political discourse are subject to scrutiny, accountability, and sometimes identity disclosure.”
Identified in the person of Robin Gunningham, by comparing some clues with documents relating to entries into Ukraine, the name David Jones, one of the most common names among British men, came up. Presumably, Reuters deduces that Gunningham thus chose to change his name, and on “October 28, 2022,” the day a peculiar entry into Ukraine was recorded, “a David Jones crossed the border, according to a source familiar with immigration procedures. The source also revealed to us the date of birth listed on Jones’ passport: it matched that of Robin Gunningham.” Because of this and some other evidence reported in the very lengthy analysis conducted, the portal claims that this name – albeit fictitious – would be traceable to the person of the British artist.
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