The artist

Banksy is an anonymous artist known for the severals graffiti he made around the world. He could be from Bristol in England. He mostly uses the stencil technique to achieve his work. His graffitis are sometimes accompagned of text. Thanks to his art, he criticizes the modern society and give strong messages. He started in Street art towards 1992-1994. His age might be around 30 years (he was born in 1974)

The context

Since Israel creation in 1948, a lot of conflicts took place between Israel and Palestine and some others Middle East countries. In 2002, Israel decided to build a wall to protect the country from the Palestinian attacks. The aim was to separate Israeli and Palestinian population. The wall became the symbol of a closed and militarized frontier.

Description

This graffti represents two children playing as if they were on a beach, with sceau and pelles. We can see that these two characters have been stenciled on the wall. They seem happy to be playing on the sand. They are represented in black and white in contrast with the sceau which is yellow. The two children are shirtless, but we don’t know if it is to evoke heat or poverty.

Above the 2 children, we see like a hole, in which there is a paradisiac and sunny landscape, with palmiers, cocotiers, turquoise water, white sand and a beach. The wall seems broken.

Interpretation

Through this graffiti, Bansky tries to criticize war stupidity. It is why he decided to paint on this specific wall: because it represents the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
The hole in the wall maybe represents the idées reçues broken, and replaced by a better reality. Also thanks to the paradisiac landscape, Banksy maybe wants to show us that after the frontier, the other side isn’t the enfer, that it is not filled with enemies, but it is rather attirant.