Banksy confirms creating new cropped tree mural in London

LONDON — Famed British street artist Banksy confirmed that he created a new mural of a cropped tree that appeared in a north London neighborhood on Sunday.

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The anonymous graffiti artist, believed to be from Bristol, posted before and after photographs of the mural in the Finsbury Park neighborhood on his Instagram account, the BBC reported.

The mural shows green paint sprayed on a wall behind a cherry tree trimmed back to look like foliage, according to the news organization. The mural covers the wall of the four-story building and depicts a stencil of a small figure holding a pressure hose next to the tree, The Associated Press reported.

Residents, while delighted to see the artist’s work in their community, were trying to decipher its meaning, The Washington Post reported.

“It’s been done for a purpose: to get people talking, to get people interested,” Jeremy Corbyn, the member of Parliament who represents North Islington and a former leader of Britain’s Labour Party, told the newspaper.

“It’s typical Banksy,” Jenna Edwards, 31, a local resident, told the Post. “No matter if the branches and the leaves fall off, as long as you address the root, and we all come together, then we can grow back better,” she said of the tree and its painted foliage.

The color of the green paint used matches the shade used by the Islington Council for signs in the local area, James Peak, who created the BBC Radio 4 series, “The Banksy Story,” told the BBC.

“When you step back it looks like the tree is bursting to life, but in a noticeably fake and synthetic way,” Peak told the news organization. “It’s spring now, and this tree should be bursting forth with leaves, but Banksy must have cycled past and thought how miserable it looks.”

Helped by his anonymity, Banksy’s graffiti art has appeared in England and Paris. It also was seen on the walls of the Ukraine city of Borodianka which was bombed by the Russians in 2021, CNN reported.

He stunned the art world in October 2018 when his “Girl With Balloon” painting “self-destructed” after being sold for $1.8 million at a London auction, partially going through a shredder after the sale was gaveled.

In 2021, the damaged painting was resold by Sotheby’s for $25.4 million, The New York Times reported. The winning bid for “Love is in the Bin” -- originally titled “Girl With Balloon” -- included a buyer’s premium, according to the BBC.

Sotheby’s sold another Banksy work, “Devolved Parliament,” for $12.1 million in 2019, according to the Times.

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