Seven Years with Banksy (5 page)

We spoke about a few things, of South America, of Sweden, of what he’d been up to, not that he’d remember anything that was said. He told me where he lived, asked me to come by and
then he said ‘Come on, let’s listen to some good music.’ And he led the way right into the pit of the crowd in front of the main stage. Johanna joined us and Portishead opened up
their set to a rapturous, thundering crowd. The West is best.

Summertime was unrolling itself over the city of Bristol when one day I found myself walking down the old Welsh Back, a long-since redundant harbour lying near Bristol Bridge in the city centre.
From a couple of hundred yards away, I saw a lone figure next to a wall of an old warehouse. I knew the building and the last time I had seen it, it was its usual red-bricked self. Now a volume of
colour emanated off it. There was no one else about and I stopped
to survey the scene. I walked on a little more and the figure, which was silhouetted against the wall and was
clearly in no hurry whatsoever, reached for a spray-can and employed a few stokes. Now I could see who it actually was. Robin. The artful dodger. I approached cautiously, not wanting to disturb him
and also remembering our last hairy encounter. I walked up and took in his work; it was relatively similar to his New York cartoon stuff on the walls of the hotel. It was like this: a figure
sitting in an armchair being blasted by a hubristic TV set, the piece was full of characters coming out of the TV and the tag line was, ‘There’s a lot of noise going on but you
ain’t saying anything!’ It ran about four metres long by three metres high – a big piece. He didn’t hear me coming and I didn’t want him to think I was sneaking up on
him so I said: ‘Oi!’ and kicked a can towards him. He looked around casually and his eyes brightened when he saw me. That was a good
sign and we started to talk and
although he was surprised to see me he didn’t miss a beat in his friendliness. I talked about this painting he was doing in broad daylight. He must have had permission to do it judging by the
time of day. He was easy-going and after a while he got back to the wall, spray-can in hand.

It was time for me to move on too, but I was pleased by this unexpected meeting. When I said, ‘Well, see ya,’ he said, ‘Yeah, come around to mine. Pay a visit.’ We
exchanged glances as I replied, ‘Yeah, will do.’

I was often in Stockholm for periods and then back to Bristol. I know my town really well and have walked the neighbourhood streets endlessly. There was nowhere I
wouldn’t walk or cycle, day or night. I would notice any new graffiti as it was thrown up. I was always reading the writing on the wall. Some of the writers I knew personally – they
varied from political sloganeers to Bronx
idealists. They reflected the state of play on the pavement, never lightly and often acutely. (It bodes well to know whose gang
territory you happen to be passing through.) Suddenly I began to notice some eclectic stencils appearing. They were all over town, from Easton to Clifton, and they were eye-catching, humorous and
challenging. Their number increased, but there was no tag, just the image. When you see this kind of quality about it makes you realize there is intelligence out there and that’s reassuring.
It also makes me proud of my town. It was just the kind of thing I loved to see on our walls as opposed to mindless, often sinister, corporate advertising on billboards.

I finally got round to visiting Robin’s place which was between St Paul’s and Easton. It was dark and rainy, the light shone out of the dampness and puddles. I hadn’t bothered
to call, I just showed up and knocked on the door. He answered and let me in, seemingly glad to see me. One or two
people were hanging out, relaxing, so we had a cup of tea amid
the mess that was strewn around and I sat on an old, battered couch that had seen better days. He introduced me and I recognized the nicknames from around town. We spoke about events and happenings
and some other personal stuff that was going on. Robin was very genial and I sat back, soaking up the creative atmosphere that rang from the walls and the sundry articles that littered the
room.

I always felt good around people like him, someone who is doing their own thing with their own mind, and letting the world hang. The lights were low and I started to pick some things out, some
canvasses, paints, loads of spray-cans and materials, like hardboard, metal and cardboard, with images or paint on. There was a big table pushed up against the window with the curtains closed (the
street was right in front) and on it was a lot of stuff pushed into piles and bundles here and there, but on the space
that was left was a cut-out stencil about a yard square,
perhaps, and cut into this cardboard was one of the images I had seen on walls all over the city. ‘Fucking hell!’ I said in surprise. ‘This is you. I’ve been seeing this all
over town!’ I laughed and looked at him.

‘Yeah, I’ve been doing stencils, have a look at these,’ he said, and he produced three or four others, each of outstanding quality. He started to cut a new one and explained
his technique and how the edges of the cutting had to be very clean so that when the paint was sprayed on the final image was finely lined. I was psyched out to realize that it was his work I had
been noticing. I hadn’t twigged that it could have been him – but now it made perfect sense. It could only have been him and I took a thrill from discovering his latest progression.

He explained his motives behind using the medium, its quickness, ease of transport and maximum effect. He bent my ear about it a little, like he was sharing his pleasure about
developing this new approach and pleased to find someone excited about it too and then he fell back to his characteristic reticence as he carried on cutting this new image.

I just watched him, sipping the tea. ‘Fucking right on,’ I thought. ‘I’m lucky enough to see this young man develop his ideas and talent’ – and his message
was unique, hard and revolutionary. He was out there, in those quiet hours, applying his mind to the walls for all to see. It was burning in him, this art, and it was a cool thing to be around that
single-mindedness, that energy. I just had to watch him, to keep tabs on him so as to see what he’d do next. The friendship was re-established. He had my ‘Summa cum laude’,
that’s all I knew.

I went to visit Robin on a semi-regular basis, when I was passing through his neck of the woods. We would talk a bit and I’d watch him do whatever he was up to with his
art. One day he mentioned ‘Delge’ aka
‘3D’ from Massive Attack – the Bristol band that originated from the Wild Bunch crew – and how a
classic piece of graffiti that 3D had done had been erased by Bristol council. Robin was offended by the incident and the ignorance of the law. He was right in that respect. I knew this piece from
years ago and it was a well-executed New York-inspired wall work around Upper Byron Place. I was upset that it had gone too. ‘But hey, that’s the name of the game, that’s what
makes graffiti so righteous that it can be there today and gone tomorrow. It’s illegal, it’s a threat and the dark forces don’t like threats,’ I said.

In return for this statement I got one of those brow-beating looks and a silence, but it was almost like he hadn’t considered that viewpoint either, like his work had a god-given right to
be up there. My statement may have sounded obvious, but his single-minded approach to his art and all street art – the time he put into it and the passion, meant that the very idea that some
ignoramus could
come and take it off the wall was absolute anathema. This isn’t a perfect world. That good art can be taken off a wall by a bloke on minimum wage should
get anyone’s gall going but the forces of ignorance are strong. The irony is that now in Bristol when a Banksy appears the council doesn’t touch it out of deference to the city folk who
have taken him into their hearts. They don’t really want another Bristol riot.

He also started to talk about Massive Attack and how he was hanging out with them when they were recording their classic album ‘Mezzanine’. I had this idea about him that he was such
a loner, such a masked man that he didn’t really have too many established connections in Bristol, but I was wrong. It was clear that he was more deeply into the scene than me. I got the
feeling he could take it or leave it but also that he felt it was only right that he should refer to and acknowledge those who had come before him and pioneered the trail. Also, it was
becoming obvious that his talents hadn’t gone unrecognized: he was becoming known and increasingly well regarded. He had a certain individuality about him, a feeling of aloneness
that surrounded him. It was always there. An outsider. A Camus. He would have been doing what he was doing regardless of whether people liked it or not. He was his own posse. One-man army. All
that.

One day we were just meandering around a dog end of Easton, Barton Hill, taking in the neighbourhood, when he said, ‘We’re nearby the studio – do you want to
come in?’ He hadn’t mentioned the studio before so I was intrigued and agreed. The place was so removed and unnoticeable it could have been in one of the industrial back streets of
Brooklyn. You just wouldn’t have known it was there if you were passing. It was a big place, splendidly industrial, beautifully light, and strongly built. It was the kind of building I loved
and the kind the council
would knock down and place a high-rise on, or maybe an IKEA if the backhander was big enough. Imagine Brunel and his railway siding workshops.

We made our way in – through gates, yards, stairs and doors. No one else was there. I had thought that he was only using his living room for his creative space but this
place was vast. A lot of his work was in one corner and other artists had stuff scattered around too. I was surprised to see quite large canvasses that were obviously his. There was a large table
with stencils on it and a multitude of spray-cans, often foreign as the quality was superior to the British aerosol. The large canvasses held images of his I had not yet seen, of tanks with
loudspeakers atop, of a rioter throwing a bunch of flowers, of helicopters with kissing lips and pink bows on top. He had been buying older classic works of art in frames to which he had added his
own images, thereby morphing
them into a commentary on or antithesis of the original intention.

‘What’s that all about?’ I asked pointing at an old countryside scene with yellow crime tape stretched around the trees (his addition, of course). ‘That’s about the
way the television series
Crimestoppers
have made us all scared to even be in the countryside.’ I didn’t want to ask too much; he was tetchy around his art, as per usual. I
looked at the helicopters with bows and lipstick on. ‘I like that,’ I said, pointing. ‘Do you? I fucking hate that one,’ he snapped.

Bristol is an eclectic and creative town. It’s an ancient place, built on and rebuilt again after battles and bombs. The Knights Templar were big there
during the Crusades. Cabot crossed the Atlantic around the same time as Columbus, funded by the Merchant Venturers of the city. Some of Bristol’s history isn’t pretty but some of its
best-loved sons were poets, artists and musicians.

There’s something in the Bristol water that loves the maverick, the independent thinker – the more advanced the better. The city’s hills resemble Rome or San Francisco and any
son that has walked stoned immaculate through its many streets on a frost-bitten night with the moon on high will tell you it is the most bohemian of places.

Now, back in the late ’60s and early ’70s Bristol was down on its luck and you could buy beautiful Georgian and Victorian properties for a song – and members of the
counter-culture from those days did just
that. The hippies flocked into the city and in some people’s eyes it became England’s answer to San Francisco. This
open-minded generation had children, the sons and daughters of bohemia, and they spread their parents’ ideals through punk and other counter-culture movements. I spent four years in San
Francisco but I never met any hippies that matched the bizarre, exceptional freaks that Bristol housed. And learned with it. There were legendary parties that went on for days, and mixed up in this
was a sizeable Rastafarian population in the ’70s, that led to cross-pollination of culture bearing fruit the like of which had never been seen before. Don’t take my word for it, look
into it yourself. True Bristolians know it, like I said, there’s something in the water.

The reason I mention all this background is because this is where Robin comes from. It’s not nowhere-land. The city has its distinct neighbourhoods. We can’t go into them all here
but if you find yourself down
in St Werburgh’s crossing to St Paul’s and over to Easton you’ll get a flavour of what I am trying to impart. The energy is
stone-buzzed and taut. The walls bear witness to the artists’ efforts of many years. The labyrinthine streets are easy to become lost in; if you know the turf you’ll always be safe,
always be able to evade the officers.

Robin lived down that way, practised his art down there and knew the people that associated there. Easton, perhaps above all, is home to an enviable ragtag collection of
nutters, bohemians, dropouts and rogues. This was his milieu in those days, not that he didn’t travel, but this is where it was going on.

One night I was invited to an evening of eccentric persuasion round at Robin’s studio. He had invited me for supper. Candles and colours lit up the place like a scene from a Peter
Greenaway film and surrounding the tables, on an odd assortment of old skip-
found chairs, couches and armchairs, sitting and standing, laughing and conversing, was a collection
of the unorthodox free citizens of the local environs. The vibe was at fever pitch as people were just about to eat. Some of the people I knew and some I recognized but most were strangers to me. I
had squatted over in Easton when I was a teenager and knew the locals back then but most of them had since died, been locked up or got the hell out. I was back in it tonight, I could tell; it was
like I had never left. I had ridden over on the Harley and I had been telling Robin about it, so I collected him from the party as soon as I had walked in so I could show it off. I didn’t
think he would be impressed at all – in fact, I thought he may well not pay it any attention, but I was proud of it and the fact that I had got it together to ship it back from New York, so I
wanted him to see it. It was a mean beast, customized in a classic, timeless fashion.