The elusive street artist Banksy has again made waves with a poignant work unveiled in Bayswater, west London, showing two children looking at the stars. The piece, posted on the artist’s Instagram account, was painted on to a wall above a row of garages on Queen's Mews.
The image depicting two children lying on the ground dressed in wellington boots, with one of them pointing upwards towards the sky, has naturally got the whole world wondering about its meaning. The plot thickens as an identical piece has also appeared under the Centre Point tower in central London (as the BBC points out, Banksy’s representatives have only confirmed the Bayswater work as his).
Banksy enthusiasts say that the pieces are clearly a statement on homelessness, especially on the eve of Christmas when parents and kids below the poverty line may well find themselves on the streets. Banksy fan Jason Tomkins also told the BBC that the boy in the new image resembles the figure in another piece—Season’s Greetings—which was unveiled in Port Talbot, South Wales, in 2018. Oscar Wilde comes to mind of course: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”