The primary colours are yellow, blue, and red. What make these colours special is that they can't be created by the mixing of other colours. Instead, they combine to create secondary colours, which in turn combine to create tertiary colours - and so on. In essence, all colours stem from the three primaries.
Starting with works that feature blue we have a selection of iconic pieces. Often used as the background, naturally for sky, blue as the predominant colour features in Police Kids, Happy Choppers, Very Little Helps and Flying Copper. The Banksy blue has a highly saturated tone and lends itself to a sense of irreality. Indeed, the world where this blue is used, much like our own, is full of authority which Banksy ties to a feeling or danger and of menace.
Arguably the most well-known work by the artist which does feature in other colours, Girl with Balloon features a deep blood red which evokes and emphasises the feelings that the work produces. Elsewhere we see this red as a counterpoint often used in conjunction with blacks - think Love Rat, the placard rat series where the bold, stencil-like works bring the red alive creating danger and rebellion. One of the most obvious examples where red is used as a background colour is Love is in the Air. First appearing in 2003, Love is in the Air or Flower Thrower as it is also known, was a large, stencilled piece of graffiti that appeared following the building of the West Bank Wall which stretches some 750km and separates Palestine from Israel. Much like the rebellious rodents of the placard series, Love is in the Air is the act of defiance and the bold intense red of the background amplifies as much as the figure in front defies.
Last, and in some sense least used, is the colour yellow. A radiant colour full of energy it seems to have been used sparingly throughout the Banksy oeuvre. As a way to add detail, yellow appears on the high-vis jackets of the airman in Applause, the hat of the fallen Dumbo and the acid-house smiley faces that can be found in Grin Reaper, Flying Copper and Have a Nice Day. As a background colour, Choose Your Weapon yellow springs ot mind with is warm saturation that radiants from the page - a bright colour contrasting with the sinister figure of the hooded youth walking the Keith Haring inspired dog.
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