Meaning & Analysis

Gangsta Rat is a 2004 Banksy mixed media, released in an edition of 25. Banksy combines signature spray-paint and stencilling techniques in depicting a rat wearing baseball cap, chain, and ghetto blaster, New York underground style, in bold monochrome.

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Using a stencil, Banksy depicts an anthropomorphised rat that takes on the appearance of a New York gangsta. The rat is rendered in black spray paint wearing a sideways New York Mets baseball cap with a chain around its neck and carrying a boombox. The rat stares out of the composition and to its right is a large exclamation mark. The dripping spray paint implies that the rat has just graffitied the exclamation mark on the canvas.

Rats have become an important visual motif that recur throughout Banksy’s artworks. The rodent has become an allegorical tool for the artist to present the flaws and vices of humans, as well as stand in solidarity with people who are treated like vermin. By making rats the subject of his spray paints, Banksy gives a voice to those who are underrepresented in capitalist society and struggle in the 21st century’s proverbial ‘rat race’.

Banksy is an anonymous artist and produces many of his street murals at night so as to avoid being seen by members of the public, as well as being caught by the police, as his public artworks are created illegally. The lawless nature of Banksy’s artistic career means that artist identifies with rats on a personal level. Like rats, graffiti artists appear at night and are considered nuisances by much of society.