| Girl with Balloon | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Original mural on Waterloo Bridge in South Bank in 2004 | |
| Artist | Banksy |
| Year | 2002 |
Girl with Balloon (also, Balloon Girl or Girl and Balloon) is a series of stencil murals around London by the graffiti artist Banksy, started in 2002. They depict a young girl with her hand extended toward a red heart-shaped balloon carried away by the wind. The locations for this work include street murals in Shoreditch and the South bank in London on the Waterloo Bridge[1] and other murals were around London, though none remain there.
Banksy has several times used variants of this design to support social campaigns: in 2005 about the West Bank barrier, in 2014 about the Syrian refugee crisis, and also about the 2017 UK election. A 2017 Samsung poll ranked Girl with Balloon as the United Kingdom's number one favourite artwork.
In 2018, a framed copy of the work was shredded after being sold at auction by way of a mechanical device Banksy had hidden inside the frame. Banksy confirmed that he was responsible for the shredding and gave the altered piece a new name, Love is in the Bin. Sotheby's said it was "the first work in history ever created during a live auction."
- ^ "How did Banksy's Girl with Balloon end up in a shredder? – Public Delivery". publicdelivery.org. Archived from the original on 30 September 2022. Retrieved 30 September 2022.