Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stenciling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls and bridges in cities throughout the world. Banksy’s work was made up of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. Observers have noted that his style is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris, Jef Aerosol, who sprayed his first street stencil in 1982 in Tours (France) and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass, which maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube system in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Known for his contempt for the government in labeling graffiti as vandalism, Banksy displays his art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls, even going as far as to build prop pieces.