Hooray for Banksy! Not only has the Street Art hero been widely acknowledged as the leading light of an art phenomenon that has swept through the streets and galleries of the world, and finally come partially out of the shadows by giving an interview to the Sun Newspaper, but we have also made him My Art Broker Artist of the Month, October 2010! Banksy is a street name, a tag that allows a graffiti artist to sign his work, without risking the police subsequently knocking on his door. Graffiti is illegal. It is a sign then of the huge popularity and power of the street art movement that an artist who once relished and took refuge in his anonymity has now been interviewed by the Sun, his true identity an open secret. Banksy is one of the worlds most famous artists. The guerrilla-style artist told the Sun newspaper that he began creating graffiti art as teenage member of the DryBreadZ Crew in his native Bristol in an attempt to make an impact and get noticed by the local trendy art scene, inspired by 3D of the dance music group Massive Attack. When he started out Banksy was painting in the Classic New York Style of bright colours and big lettering. "There was always a lot of graffiti in my home town growing up, urmm, I think 3D from Massive Attack had brought it back with him off tour in America and he'd been painting all over the city," he told the Sun. The elusive artist admitted that he had to ditch the American style of graffiti painting because the technique took too long and left him vulnerable to arrest from the police for vandalism and defacing public property. Banksy hit the big time when he moved to London and started to use stencils both for speed in avoiding capture, and to differentiate his work stylistically from that New York style. The stencilled images were occasionally combined with text, and overall the work had an anti-establishment feel, if not a direct political message. It became clear at this point the huge debt owed by Banksy and artists like him to a then little-known Parisian, Blek le Rat. Banksy fully acknowledges this debt in his book, and the two artists work can look very similar. London was soon abuzz with new sightings of the Britstolian's controversial graffiti art on a regular basis which was no longer confined to the walls of the capital city as Banksy aimed to expand his repertoire. "I didn't see why you'd settle for just walls. So I started vandalising statues and that led to vandalising parks. It just kept going really," he told the Sun.It was when the graffitist began to make work for exhibition in art galleries in Britain and America that Banksy prints and originals started to become popular with celebrities and collectors.Pop star Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two Banksy prints for £25,000, while Hollywood actor Brad Pitt is reported to have purchased a piece via a phone bid at a London auction. Banksy claims that his current celebrity status is both a blessing and a curse as he still feels nostalgia for his previous lifestyle as an underground graffitist, despite being one of Britain's most bankable artists. "It's great, I guess, when your paintings are hanging up in a museum. But I can't help feeling it was a bit easier when all I had to compete against was a dustbin down an alley rather than, you know, a Gainsborough or something," he said.The man has truly made it!