Name: Nola (orange rain)
Brand: Banksy
Rating: 5 (236 reviews)

Track auction value trend

Banksy's Nola (orange rain) (signed) is a screenprint from 2008, estimated to be worth between £70,000 to £110,000. This artwork has shown consistent value growth, with an auction history of six total sales since its entry to the market in December 2014. In the past five years, the hammer price has varied from £85,675 in April 2023 to £182,400 in December 2021. The average annual growth rate for this piece is -8%. The edition size of this artwork is limited to 32.

Meaning & Analysis

Banksy's Nola (orange rain) is a poignant signed screen print, released in 2008 in an edition of 32 alongside various other colours. Commemorating the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, it features a young girl holding an umbrella that causes a downpour, implicating the New Orleans’ authorities' inadequate response, which failed to shelter vulnerable people in the hurricane’s wake.

Nola, or “Rain Girl”, first appeared as a piece of graffiti in 2008 on a wall in New Orleans, referencing hurricane Katrina that left the city in devastation not long before. Rendered in Banksy’s classic graffiti-spray-stencil style, it shows a young girl in a dress in black and white, beneath a black umbrella, holding her other hand out to feel the rain that is pouring down. The background is a block grey as orange rain falls from the umbrella. The image evokes a kind of heart-warming innocence that strikes as especially powerful when reflecting on such a catastrophe. Banksy uses the same motif of the little girl in other impactful artworks such as Girl with Balloon.

In an interview, Banksy said that the artwork represents how some of the things that are supposed to protect us, can also harm us. Nola was released in a number of different colours, the original screen print produced with white rain drops.