Banksy Paints a Grim Holiday Mural: Season’s Greetings to All

Season’s greet­ings from Banksy. Two months after shred­ding a paint­ing at a Lon­don auc­tion, the street artist has resur­faced again. This time in Port Tal­bot, Wales, where he spray-paint­ed a hol­i­day mur­al on two sides of a garage. One sides shows a young boy frol­ick­ing in what looks like falling snow. The oth­er side makes you real­ize that the snow is real­ly a fire spew­ing tox­ic ash.

Accord­ing to the BBC, Gary Owen, a Port Tal­bot res­i­dent, mes­saged Banksy last sum­mer and asked him to put a spot­light on Port Tal­bot’s chron­ic pol­lu­tion prob­lem. The steel­works of the indus­tri­al town puts dust in the air, cre­at­ing poten­tial health risks for chil­dren. When Owen learned about the mur­al, he report­ed­ly said: “It’s bril­liant. I could­n’t take it in. I did­n’t think it was true.” That’s all before some “some drunk halfwit” tried to attack the paint­ing–very for­tu­nate­ly to no avail.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Dis­ma­land — The Offi­cial Unof­fi­cial Film, A Cin­e­mat­ic Jour­ney Through Banksy’s Apoc­a­lyp­tic Theme Park

Banksy Shreds His $1.4 Mil­lion Paint­ing at Auc­tion, Tak­ing a Tra­di­tion of Artists Destroy­ing Art to New Heights

Behind the Banksy Stunt: An In-Depth Break­down of the Artist’s Self-Shred­ding Paint­ing