Precision Bombing

Painted in 2000, Banky’s Precision Bombing is a caustic, confrontational work dating from the thrilling early years of his career. Characteristically layering stencilled images, the painting depicts an ominous group of besuited men walking towards an awaiting car; unbeknownst to them, the vehicle is caught in the green crosshairs of an unseen rifle. The work’s title describes a combat manoeuvre first seen during World War I, in which aerial bombers would try to precisely hit a target so as to minimise damage to the surrounding environs. While this endeavour was largely unsuccessful owing to the technology of the day, accuracy has greatly improved throughout the ensuing century; Banksy’s vivid crosshairs make reference both to these tactics specifically and to the violence and fear they wrought more broadly. Indeed, institutional paranoia is a recurrent theme for an artist whose oeuvre welcomes defiance and anti-authoritarian acts: from his commentaries on police brutality to his critiques of capitalism and politics, the artist has repeatedly explored the ways in which power is consolidated and corrupted. Precision Bombing is hand signed on the reverse, a rare choice for an artist who values privacy and anonymity above all.

Although Banksy rose to prominence in his native Bristol during the early 1990s, it was not until the turn of the millennium that he achieved more widespread renown. The year 2000 saw his first exhibition in London, as well as a show at Severnshed in Bristol that featured another edition of the present work. During this period, he began to embrace stencils as a means of expediting his process; indeed, the shift from his early freehand drawings to tightly composed configurations is solidified in the present work. Banksy claims that this evolution was his eureka moment: inspiration struck when, forced to hide from the police, he took refuge underneath a lorry and took notice of the markings on the side of the cab. ‘As I lay there listening to the cops on the tracks,’ he recalled, ‘I realised I had to cut my painting time in half or give it up altogether. I was staring straight up at the stencilled plate on the bottom of the fuel tank when I realised I could just copy that style and make each letter three feet high’ (Banksy, Wall and Piece, London 2005, p. 13). The act of pre-cutting his stencils would become part and parcel of Banksy’s anti-establishment visual rhetoric, allowing him to work quickly and without detection while simultaneously lending his graffiti a raw, political edge.

While initially limiting his critiques to the UK, Banksy has since widened his remit to tackle international concerns: he has painted the streets and walls of the Palestinian territories and migrant encampments in Calais and addressed everything from Hurricane Katrina to Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. His work derives much of its power from its democratic reach, engaging people from all walks of life and speaking the truth to power. ‘Imagine a city where graffiti wasn’t illegal’, he writes, ‘a city where everybody could draw whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours, and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the state agents and barons of big business’ (Banksy, Wall and Piece, London 2005, p. 97). In the present work, Banksy sets the authorities clearly within his sight, letting them know he is watching.