BANKSY // Grin Reaper, 2005

  • Banksy’s 2005 Grin Reaper with scythe and yellow smiley face, dark humour street art.

    Banksy, Grin Reaper, 2005.
    Screen-print in colours on wove paper, 70 × 44 cm.
    © Banksy.

    Grin Reaper is one of Banksy’s earliest and most recognisable street works, first appearing around Shoreditch and Old Street in the early 2000s. The piece features the Grim Reaper seated casually on a clock face - scythe in hand - with a bright yellow smiley face replacing the usual skeletal grin.
     
    The clock, resembling Big Ben, reads five minutes to midnight, hinting at an impending moment of reckoning. With its dark humour and bold symbolism, Grin Reaper captures Banksy’s enduring critique of fear, authority, and the absurdity of modern life.

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  • “We’re not picking on you personally, we’re just trying to get the message across.”

    – Banksy

    Grin Reaper is one of Banksy’s most iconic early works, first appearing in Shoreditch and Old Street in the early 2000s. The image depicts the Grim Reaper perched on a clock face, scythe in hand, with a bright yellow smiley mask replacing the usual skeletal skull. This juxtaposition of death with a hollow symbol of happiness creates an image that is both absurd and unsettling.
    The clock, thought to reference Big Ben, is set to five minutes before midnight, evoking the “Doomsday Clock” and the sense of looming catastrophe. With its mixture of gallows humour, pop iconography, and stark political undertone, Grin Reaper captures Banksy’s fascination with mortality, authority, and the contradictions of contemporary culture.