When Time magazine selected the British artist Banksy (graffiti master, painter, activist, filmmaker and all-purpose provocateur—for its list of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2010, he found himself in the company of Barack Obama, Steve Jobs and Lady Gaga. He supplied a picture of himself with a paper bag (recyclable, naturally) over his head. Most of his fans don’t really want to know who he is (and have loudly protested Fleet Street attempts to unmask him).
When he was 18, he once wrote, he was painting a train with friends when the British Transport Police showed up, everyone ran. “The rest of my mates made it to the car,” Banksy recalled, “and disappeared so I spent over an hour hidden under a dumper truck with engine oil leaking all over me. I realized I had to cut my painting time in half or give it up altogether. I was staring up at a stenciled plate on the bottom of the fuel tank when I realized I could just copy that style, but make each letter three feet high.” But he also told his friend, author Tristan Manco: “As soon as I cut my first stencil I could feel the power there. I also like the political edge. All graffiti is low-level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They’ve been used to start revolutions and to stop wars.”
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-story-behind-banksy-4310304/?no-ist