In early May 2008, Banksy organised ‘The Cans Festival’ in South East London. With a play on words and homage to the more glamourous and better known ‘Cannes Festival’, several stencil artists from around the world, including Eelus and Blek le Rat, were invited to ‘bomb’ the London streets – barrage their paint murals and artworks across the dreary walls at the Leake Street Tunnel complex. 

This area, near Waterloo Station, was previously used by train operator Eurostar, who had abandoned the site once they moved their train operations over to Kings Cross St Pancras station. 

Banksy was quoted in The Daily Telegraph as saying, “Graffiti doesn’t always spoil buildings, in fact it’s the only way to improve a lot of them. In the space of a few hours with a couple of hundred cans of paint I’m hoping we can transform a dark forgotten filth pit into an oasis of beautiful art.”

The event was held for three days and drew an audience of hundreds over the UK May Bank Holiday.

At the festival’s end, Pictures on Walls distributed a very limited number of Banksy studio-produced giclee signed prints, like this one displayed, featuring a ‘Rodeo Girl’ riding a can of spray paint. 

The female image was inspired by World War II fighter pilots, who adorned their fighter planes, missiles and bombs with ‘pin-up girls’. They represented the ‘eternal feminine’ who needed to be protected and was ‘waiting back home’ for those men who survived and managed to return home. 

Here, Banksy substitutes an explosive for a paint cannister – the image for a very different kind of ‘bombing’. 

These artworks were provided as a gesture of thanks to those who volunteered and contributed to the street art festival. It was gifted to them in place of direct financial remuneration for their time and hard work. 

This piece was given to Michael Goring, who was a security chaperone at the event. Each distributed print was individually dedicated, and hand signed by Banksy in pencil. 

There is an estimated number of between twenty to forty of these prints in existence, making it one of Banksy’s rarest and most desirable prints among collectors.