BANKSY // Love Rat, 2003

  • Banksy’s 2003 Love Rat paints red heart on wall, one of his most recognised rodent artworks.
    Banksy, Love Rat, 2003.
    Spray-paint and emulsion on canvas, 60.9 × 46.2 cm. Unique.
    Stencilled signed “BANKSY”, lower left.
    © Banksy.
    Banksy’s Love Rat presents a striking juxtaposition of tenderness and rebellion, featuring a woman cradling a rat against a saturated pink backdrop. Above the pair floats a white heart, partially obscured by streaks of pink paint that bleed downward, spilling over the figures and canvas.
     
    Banksy’s rats are not mere vermin - they’re observers, saboteurs, survivors. In Love Rat, the animal is elevated to a romantic figure, wrapped in a human embrace that feels both genuine and satirical. Is it a celebration of forbidden love, or a warning about what, or whom, society teaches us to reject?  As always, Banksy’s message resists neat conclusions, leaving us to question who is worthy of love, what is worthy of rebellion, and why the two are often the same.
  • "The undesirables and the unloved. They are the ultimate survivors.”
    - Banksy 
    Love Rat shows a woman holding a rat in her arms beneath a white heart. The background is painted in vivid pink, with streaks of paint bleeding downward across the composition. By humanising the rat, Banksy transforms the creature into a symbol of romance and rebellion, consistent with his wider use of rats as stand-ins for resilience, mischief, and subversion.