A second work by the popular street artist Banksy has appeared in London on two blocked out windows depicting two elephants facing each other.
The image of the elephants on the side of a building in Chelsea was also uploaded to Banksy’s Instagram account Tuesday. It was the second cryptic post by the Bristol-based street artist after the appearance of a stenciled mountain goat precariously perched on a structure supporting a wall near London’s Kew Bridge.
Both images have prompted speculation online and in the press about what Banksy may be trying to convey. A top comment on Instagram said, “Walking by and ignoring ‘the elephant in the room’… Perfect representation of the UK right now.”
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Another fan in London, Amber Doffman, said the mountain goat was a comment on how humans are destroying the natural habitat for many animals.
“[It could be about] how we’ve ruined [the environment] to the point that animals don’t know where to go anymore,” Doffman told The Sun. “It’s also worth noting that that security camera wasn’t facing that way before. Banksy has turned it towards the goat. It’s like it’s wanting its attention,” she added.
The two murals follow the artist’s comment in early July in response to criticism from the British Home Secretary James Cleverly regarding an artwork featuring an inflatable migrant raft that appeared at the Glastonbury music festival. The politician called the Banksy work “vile and unacceptable” during an appearance on Sky News. Banksy wrote in an Instagram post that Cleverly’s response seemed “a bit over the top.”
“The real boat I fund, the MV Louise Michel, rescued 17 unaccompanied children from the central Med on Monday night,” Banksy wrote. “As punishment the Italian authorities have detained it—which seems vile and unacceptable to me.”
In addition to attention from fans, the new murals in London will likely require additional protection. A Banksy mural in the northern part of the city depicting a life-size woman holding a pressure washer next to green paint in the shape of a tree’s leaves was defaced with white paint shortly after its debut in March. The owner of the residential building later installed plastic sheets and wooden boards.
