Street art that has appeared in coastal towns in the East of England may be the work of an anonymous artist, Banksy. Banksy’s style of Stencil graffiti artworks has been spotted in Lowestoft in Suffolk, and Gorleston and Great Yarmouth in Norfolk.
The graffiti in the Nicholas Everitt Park in Lowestoft depicts three children standing in a scrap-metal boat that has since been removed, with one looking back, one searching the horizon, and one leaning over the side of the boat holding a bucket, with the message “We’re all in the same boat” written in the background.
Another possible Banksy adorns a wall outside a former electrical shop in Lowestoft, a town of about 70,000 people, which appears to show a child building a sandcastle next to a bit of dug-up road.
The artist has not commented on the authenticity of the works so far, but Banksy fans will be keeping an eye on his Instagram account for updates.
In Great Yarmouth, a stenciled couple can now be seen dancing on the roof of a bus stop shelter.
The chief executive of Great Yarmouth borough council, Sheila Oxtoby, told the BBC: “We’re just as intrigued and curious as everybody else as to whether these could be genuine Banksy. It would be great to think that they were, but we really don’t know.”
In March, Banksy raised £16.7m – a world auction record for the artist – for health projects with the auction of a painting depicting a child playing with a toy nurse, instead of the Batman or Spider-Man toys peeking out of a basket. The painting, titled Game Changer, was donated to Southampton hospital during the first wave of the pandemic.
In March, groups in Reading expressed “huge disappointment” after a mural by Banksy on the side of a former prison was defaced with red paint and the phrase “Team Robbo”, probably a reference to the graffiti artist King Robbo, who was in a long-running rivalry with Banksy before his death in 2014.
The artwork, entitled Create Escape, appeared on the red brick wall of Reading prison on 1 March and showed an inmate escaping lockdown using a knotted spool of paper from a typewriter.