British street artist’s ‘real’ name reported after an investigation stretching from Ukraine to New York and London. Kelly Burke explains all to Nick Miller
Hi Kelly, everyone is talking about Banksy (again) – what’s he done this time?
Hi Nick. So a really long (8,000-word) investigation by Reuters claims it has discovered the elusive street artist’s true identity, which backs up claims made by the Mail on Sunday British tabloid almost two decades ago that he is a 52-year-old Bristol-born man called Robin Gunningham, now going by the name of David Jones.
Wait … didn’t we already know that? Or was it supposed to be the guy from Massive Attack?
Sort of. Previous reports suggested that Robert Del Naja, the co-founder of Massive Attack – a pioneer in trip-hop, which is a music genre that also has its roots in Bristol – was Banksy. Now it seems that Naja is Gunningham’s secret partner/enabler/scout/gatekeeper.












