BANKSY // Love Rat, 2004

  • Banksy’s 2004 Love Rat holding dripping red heart, famous print from his urban rat series.
    Banksy, Love Rat, 2004.
    Screen-print in colours on wove paper, 50 × 35 cm.
    © Banksy.
    The first of Banksy’s rat editions, Love Rat sets the tone for what would become one of his most enduring symbols. In stark black and white, the rat wields a dripping paintbrush, having just scrawled a red heart on the wall behind, the only flash of colour in the image.
     
    At first glance, it reads romantic, but the bleeding paint shifts the message: love wounds as much as it excites. Banksy promoted the edition as the ideal gift for a “cheating spouse”- tongue firmly in cheek. It’s a classic example of his ability to lace sentiment with cynicism.
     
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  • "If you are dirty, insignificant and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model.”

    – Banksy

    Love Rat was the first of Banksy’s rat editions and cemented the rodent as one of his defining symbols. Depicted in black and white with a dripping paintbrush, the rat has just scrawled a vivid red heart across the wall, the sole burst of colour in the composition. What looks romantic at first is undercut by the bleeding paint, suggesting love’s fragility and the pain bound up with affection. Banksy’s own tongue-in-cheek promotion of the work as a perfect gift for a “cheating spouse” captures his knack for mixing irony with sentiment.