Banksy In Britain: LONDON Part 2

Clown House, Stoke Newington, N16 0UH. Nearest tube station: Manor House
State Of Existence: PRESENT

Prepare yourself for a little bit of a walk out for this one. Although both location and condition of the piece make it an essential part of the tour. This is situated in the strangest part of London, I have ever been to, if not being just 20 minutes away from a tube station, I would have felt I had taken a wrong turn to the Cotswolds or something.  Oh yes, this place is London, Village Style. I can imagine the properties surrounding costing a fair crust, and there is also a very, very nice park on the way to Clown House, which has a petting zoo right in the middle of it!! This was all highly alien for this Northern lad, watching London's most privileged folk engage in all sorts of activities: badminton, tightrope walking, champagne picnics while passing the joint and generally making me feel like a right pauper. So if you are into property porn, or looking to pull a stoned yuppie; this is an exemplary area to make a start .
But onto the Banksy, with which I was gloriously impressed. Remarkably more free hand looking than any of the previous pieces, it gives a glorious wash of color to the forecourt of the nearby flats. The piece was incredibly relevant for a trip on which we were going to a Blur concert, for this is an extension of an idea commissioned by blur to use on their EP Crazy Beat.
There is a story about this piece, where the council turned up with a long roller and a tin of thick black paint, and proceeded to go over it, eradicating a lot of the detail that once surrounded it. Luckily, an understandably hysterical resident quickly came out and managed to stop them. We where incredibly close to losing Clown House (see right to see how close that roller got!), and its nice to know, how lucky we are that the Clown Family are still intact, smiling over and brightening up this incredibly lovely part of London.

  
Child Labour, Tottenham, N22 6DJ
State Of Existence: GONE

The source of much controversy this year, when it was seamlessly cut out of its wall to be sold in Miami, Child Labour was one of the most recent and well preserved Banksy's to be situated in the British capital when I went looking for them.
I was particularly bitter on hearing the news of the pieces removal for two reasons: first of all the area had been one of the most viciously looted and terrorized areas during the notorious UK Summer Riots in 2011, and the work had drawn deservedly positive attention to the area just less than a year later. The influx of visitors it would have brought with it surely providing a bump up in profits for many of those small businesses shamelessly ruined in the carnage of the year before. Secondly, that my particular experience when visiting this piece was rather sweet and memorable.
While standing round taking our snaps of this wonderful, tightly stenciled piece, we got talking to a local man who asked us if the piece was by Banksy. We quickly got into conversation about Banksy's popularity and the value of his work on the street and also for sale in showrooms. It was a lovely, quirky exchange that demonstrated more to me, as a tourist, about the personality of the Capital's residence, than the crowd of any sycophantic, flag waving inner city event ever would.

Funny thing about this piece is it was originally created in May/June 2012, probably to concide with the Queen's Jubillee, just days before we went on our first ill fated Banksy tour. That's right, as we trailed aimlessly looking for Pulp Fiction Banana's (well gone) and Kissing Coppers (wrong city), the paint on this one was still wet and making fresh news. I kicked myself on the train home!
Nevertheless though, I seen it eventually, and now it probably hangs disjointedly in some millionaires wonderfully decorated mansion, please see these pictures as evidence to why street art belongs on the street.

Shop Till You Drop, West London, W1J 6PT. Nearest Tube Station: Green Park
State of existence: PRESENT

Almost secretively hidden away down a back alley high up on an office block close to Bond Street, Shop Till You Drop is now possibly one of the most famous, intact pieces by the artist in London.
Photography is not particularly easy either; due to the height of the building, the narrowness of the road, and the fatness of my head in the foreground of photographs, I decided to take a different tact. This provided some serious laughs.
Wearing fitted chino trousers and baked by the hot summers day, I took on the seemingly (for 5ft 8 me anyway) impossible task of climbling up on to the nearby four foot high, two foot wide wall, to get in the photograph a little more comfortably, without falling and breaking my neck. Thanks to my then girlfriends brilliantly twisted sense of humor, I am lucky enough to have a photograph of my (eventually successful) attempt at climbing onto this wall.
What is great about Shop Till You Drop, is despite its fame, it still feels wonderfully obscure to find this dark stencil loitering in a completely normal back alley. I have seen a picture of this online, that shows an ominous Team Robbo threat of "try putting plexiglass over this one sonny" sprayed at street level. Get this one seen while it is there: just take care climbing that wall.

Part 3 Coming Soon