Critical Review
Paranoid Pictures, an acrylic and stencil spray paint on canvas, was made by the internationally acclaimed British street artist Banksy in 2008. Coming in an edition size of 25, Banksy depicts a logo for a fictional production company, Paranoid Pictures. To create this logo, Banksy appropriates the well known Paramount Pictures logo which is immediately recognisable from the white mountain surrounded by an arch of stars that is often seen before Hollywood blockbuster films.
In this artwork, Banksy re-appropriates the logo by replacing the text ‘Paramount’ by the word ‘Paranoid’. Banksy keeps the same aesthetic for the logo, and even uses the same font, meaning that at first glance, it is not apparent that the artist has changed the name of the production company. Paranoid Pictures is the logo for the fictional production company created by Banksy. In 2010, the artist released a documentary film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, which premiered at Sundance and told the story of Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles who was obsessed with street art.
Using a stencil and black and white spray paint, a characteristic feature of Banksy’s visual language, the artist reproduces the mountain, arch of stars, and curved font. Banksy adopted the stencil technique in the 1990s because it enabled him to produce graffiti drawings in a fraction of the time and evade being caught by the police or being spotted by onlookers.
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