Earlier this month, Banksy unveiled a new mural in London: a solitary black lighthouse painted onto a residential building, its beam cleverly cast by a nearby streetlamp. Faintly lit within the glow are the words, “I want to be what you saw in me.”
As with most of his work, it appeared without warning and already feels permanent. It’s delicate, poetic, and quietly loaded, a piece that doesn’t shout to be noticed but lingers once it is.
THE RISE OF GRAFFITI IN FINE ART
The resurgence of graffiti-informed work in the fine art world is hard to ignore. Not as spectacle, but as substance. Museums, fairs, and collectors are giving renewed attention to artists whose practices are rooted in street culture but driven by strong conceptual frameworks.
What once lived on train carriages and shuttered shopfronts is now being reframed, not sanitised but contextualised, in galleries and collections across the world. It is less about nostalgia and more about evolution. A visual language that has matured without losing its urgency.
A NAME ON THE RISE: CRIATURA
One artist pushing this conversation forward is Criatura, whose work we are proud to represent at Waran’s Fine Art.
His paintings, defined by surreal tentacled forms, high-contrast palettes, and psychological depth, offer something more than aesthetic. They present a confrontation. A questioning of space, identity, and what does not quite belong. The influence of graffiti is present, but refracted through a different lens, one informed by symbolism, surrealism, and digital culture.
Criatura has shown at Frieze London, Tate Modern, and Art Basel Miami. What is coming next will mark a new chapter. He is an artist we have believed in for some time, and the momentum building around his practice reflects that.
