The speculated Banksy piece shows an elegant reindeer decorated with Christmas lights looking towards the sky (Picture: Martyn Wheatley/i-Images)
Banksy is believed to have struck a second time in two days, offering an insight into his theme for Christmas 2025.
The elusive artist is thought to be behind a stencil of a reindeer that appeared on a wall of a disused tennis court changing rooms in London Fields, Hackney, overnight.
Its majestic antlers are tangled in multicoloured fairy lights hanging from a metal bar attached to the blue wall.
The work appeared 24 hours after two other pieces- confirmed Banksys – of children lying on their backs and pointing up at the sky in Bayswater and near the Centre Point building.
If Banksy claims the piece as his own, it would be the second time he has struck this Christmas (Picture: Martyn Wheatley/i-Images)
The two boys stargazing by Centrepoint appeared on Monday (Picture: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock)
For the last eight years, Banksy has struck in the run-up to Christmas with work that offers some form of social commentary.
The unknown artist is yet to confirm the reindeer is his, but the multi-textural fourth-wall-busting nature of the piece is reminiscent of his style.
The clues that connect the stargazing children and the reindeer?
Clue 1: A shared gaze
The most obvious connection is that in all three images, the figures are positioned low to the ground, looking upwards.
Clue 2: Natural vs artificial light
There is a striking contrast in what the figures appear to be looking at. The children point towards what could be a natural light source — the Star of Bethlehem, perhaps. The reindeer’s gaze, meanwhile, is obstructed by festive fairy lights. Banksy is well known for this kind of juxtaposition: hope versus distraction.
Clue 3: Timing and repetition
The two stencils appeared exactly 24 hours apart. Coordination or coincidence? Given Banksy’s history of working in short, concentrated bursts, it feels deliberate — echoing his Concrete Jungle Safari murals, which appeared across London in quick succession.
Clue 4: Ground level, in the gutter
The placement of the works offers another clue. All three figures sit at the very bottom of the walls they occupy. They exist in the gutter, looking up at the world above them. Banksy often places his most vulnerable subjects quite literally at the margins.
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Clue 5: Location as message
Centre Point provides the clearest signal, given its long association with homelessness. London Fields is also an area where rough sleepers are regularly visible at night. Bayswater complicates the picture, but perhaps deliberately so — suggesting the issue is not confined to any one part of the city. It marks a return to Banksy’s familiar themes of vulnerability, displacement and visibility.
Clue 6: An evolution in form
There is a clear progression in technique. The stargazing figures are flat stencils, while the reindeer introduces physical elements in the form of fairy lights. If this is a Banksy, it marks a shift from two dimensions to mixed media — a method he has previously used to build narrative momentum rather than simply vary style.
Will another appear on Christmas Day?
We may only have a matter of hours to find out.
The Banksy Christmas tradition
Banksy has a long association with releasing work around Christmas.
His ‘Santa’s Ghetto’ ran intermittently between 2002 and 2007 as a temporary, Christmas-only project staged in improvised locations across London, before concluding in Bethlehem.
One piece saw Jesus Christ being crucified while holding shopping bags, another involved a boy trying to eat snowflakes that were actually ashes from a bin fire.
Here’s a selection of his latest pieces over the last few years.
2024
Mother and Child
Banksy’s Mother and Child, unveiled in 2024, shows a woman reminiscent of the Madonna, breastfeeding a baby through a rusty pipe embedded in the wall.
Dirty water appears to trickle from her breast. Without an explanation offered by the artist, experts hypothesised Banksy was drawing attention to scandals in the Catholic Church that led to the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
2023
Banksy’s drones cover a stop sign in London (Picture: Reuters)
Banksy’s Christmas anti-war message on a stop sign in Peckham, south London was stolen less than an nhour after the artist confirmed it was his.
The aircraft on the stop sign replicated those from Banksy’s 2017 artwork Civilian Drone Strike, which had drones bombing a childlike drawing of a house.
2022
Banksy unveiled his 50 prints of a mouse gripping on to a cardboard box to fund Ukrainian war efforts.
Agile is thought to represent Ukrainian’s ability to cope and improvise to fight back against Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
The artist wrote: ‘I’ve made 50 of these screenprints with all proceeds going to our friends in Ukraine.’
2021
Customers in Rough Trade in Bristol, with a T-shirt designed by street artist Banksy (Picture:PA)
Banksy a native Bristolian took up the cause of the Colston 4. The artist designed a t-shirt for the activists eventually acquitted for their role in pushing the statue of slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol harbour.
The anonymous artist posted on Instagram pictures of limited edition grey souvenir T-shirts going on sale in Bristol only ‘to buy them a pint’. The shirts have a picture of Colston’s empty plinth with a rope hanging off, with debris and a discarded sign nearby.
2020
‘Aachoo!!’ by Banksy in Totterdown, Bristol (Picture: REUTERS)
Aaachoo!! appeared at the bottom of one of the steepest streets in the UK, Vale Street, on 12 December 2020.
When viewed from road level, it looks as if the woman’s sneeze is so powerful it is blowing the houses over as well as the false teeth out of her mouth.
(Picture Reuters)
It is widely seen as Banksy’s take on the Covid-19 pandemic. The UK’s first major lockdown began on March 23, 2020.
2019
Scar of Bethlehem (Picture: PA)
Banksy’s warped version of a nativity scene is the Scar of Bethlehem.
It depicts a modern wartorn Bethlehem wall with the traditional Mary and Joseph, the baby Jesus in the stable. Instead of the Star of Bethlehem guiding the wise men, the artist swaps it for a mortar hole.
The installation was unveiled at Banksy’s re-opened Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, which offered ‘the worst view of any hotel in the world’.
2018
Banksy’s Seasons Greetings (Picture: PA)
Banksy’s Season’s Greetings which depicts a message about the impact of pollution on communities and appeared on the outside of a steelworker’s private garage in Taibach, Port Talbot in 2018.
The figure of the boy is believed to have been replicated in his latest Bayswater stargazing work in Bayswater. Banksy is not known to repeat his characters often.
2017
Peace on Earth (Picture: PA)
Banksy’s ironic Peace on Earth message depicts a small print of ‘terms and conditions apply’ on the border between Israel and Palestine in 2017.
The Christmas Star is used as an asterisk highlighting the futility of the conflict in the region.
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