For years, the rumour has been that the man behind the Banksy moniker is Robin Gunningham, with this photo first doing the rounds over 15 years ago in several media outlets who were convinced they had uncovered the true identity of the elusive artist:

Since then, there hasn’t been much in the way of confirmation or clues, with the debate briefly arising anytime a new Banksy would suddenly appear at some obscure location. But then at 10am on Saturday, March 23 2024, these pictures were snapped just outside Banksy’s latest mural in Finsbury Park, London:

Hmmm. Is that Banksy or just some guy working for the council who’s cleaning up around the mural? It’s hard to say, but many people seem convinced that it’s Robin Gunningham AKA Banksy himself. Have to admit, if you look at the title image again where Gunningham and this man are side by side, you could convince me that it’s the same person 15 years apart. Would Banksy really be so bold as to hide like this in plain sight, though? After all these years of keeping his identity a mystery? Or, at least, unconfirmed?

A witness said: ‘I have been going to the mural for a whole week. On Saturday there were more security fences and CCTV up and a few people putting up Perspex over the artwork. I went back at 10am to go have another look at what they were doing and saw this man who looks exactly like the photo I saw 20 years ago of Banksy. I found it weird he was putting up his own Perspex. The people putting it up weren’t wearing council uniforms or anything, one was wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. He must have been there for hours.’

Well, I guess the jury is still out. Which is good news for Banksy because I can imagine if and when his identity is categorically revealed to the world, the value of his work would plummet. He wouldn’t risk that just to troll everybody by hanging out at the site of one of his works, would be?

For the guy who paid $300K for a fake Banksy NFT, click HERE. There was a happy ending, though.