BANKSY // CND Soldiers, 2005

  • Banksy’s 2005 CND Soldiers praying by peace symbol, anti-war street art edition.

    Banksy, CND Soldiers, 2005.
    Screen-print in colours on wove paper, 70 × 50 cm.
    © Banksy.

    Banksy’s CND Soldiers depicts two soldiers crouching low - one armed with a machine gun, the other painting a red peace symbol on a wall. Created for an anti-war protest outside the Houses of Parliament, the work is a powerful contradiction: those trained for combat now vandalising walls in the name of peace.
     
    The red peace sign, derived from the 1957 British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), drips like blood - a striking visual metaphor for the costs of war. By turning soldiers into dissenters, Banksy flips the narrative: are they protectors, or protestors?
     
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  • “Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can’t even finish my second apple pie.”

     – Banksy 

    CND Soldiers (2003) is one of Banksy’s most direct anti-war images, first painted near the Houses of Parliament in London. Two soldiers, crouched in military formation, are shown spray-painting a bright red peace sign onto a wall. The clash of imagery is immediate and unsettling — armed figures of authority creating the very symbol they are trained to suppress. The dripping red paint recalls blood, underlining the human cost of war, while the irony of soldiers as graffiti artists adds Banksy’s trademark humour.
    By merging state violence with pacifist symbolism, Banksy calls into question the true role of the military and the contradictions of modern warfare. The work remains one of his clearest statements against conflict and government hypocrisy.
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