The anonymous British artist Banksy on Monday revealed a new mural in London, timed for the holiday season with what seems to be a message both sweet and damning, in what has become something of a Christmas tradition for the mysterious muralist.
The new mural, an image of which was also posted on the artist’s Instagram account on Monday, appeared on a wall in Bayswater, in central London, and depicts two children in winter hats and boots, placed so they look to be lying on a tin roof. The larger child points upward, presumably at the sky, while they are surrounded by the neighborhood’s real-world garbage.
The children in the image look identical to another mural that showed up over the weekend in the Tottenham Court Road area of central London, bustling with holiday shoppers. That mural did not appear on Banksy’s Instagram, where he posts authentic works, but it was, nevertheless, widely attributed to him and showed the same two children lying down, this time on the sidewalk. Behind them is the Centre Point tower, a high-rise with offices, shops and luxury apartments.
Banksy does not speak to the news media or public, and his work often stirs debate about its meaning. He is known for social and political commentary, and the latest murals in London were interpreted by some observers in the street art world as a statement on rising child homelessness in Britain, based on the content and locations.
In October, the British government released data from the first half of the year showing a rise in children living in temporary accommodations in the first half of 2025 over the same period in 2024, with a record high of more than 170,000 children in Britain falling into the unhoused category.
Although Banksy has yet to claim the Centre Point image on his social media, the placement there is notable. Centrepoint is the name of a leading British charity fighting youth homelessness, and the name was given in 1969, “inspired by” the luxury building’s appellation and chosen to highlight the contrast between the expensive tower, which the group’s founder had considered an “affront to the homeless,” and the young people he wanted to keep off the streets.
Banksy has created works seemingly timed for Christmas before.
Homelessness was a theme in a Banksy mural posted in Birmingham, England, in 2019, depicting reindeers taking flight and pulling a bench where homeless people were known to sleep, in an image reminiscent of Santa Clause’s sled delivering gifts. That same year, a Nativity scene he created, with a bullet hole in a concrete wall above the baby Jesus instead of a star, called “The Scar of Bethlehem,” was unveiled at a hotel in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, serving as a commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Last December, he revealed “Madonna and Child” on social media, a work on metal depicting a mother reminiscent of the Virgin Mary with a rusty bullet hole in her breast and a baby in her arms. The stand-alone work is now showing at the MOCO Museum in Barcelona, Spain, and was interpreted by some as a commentary on the civilian death toll of the war in Gaza.
During the Christmas season in 2018, the artist created a mural that appeared on a garage in a steelworker town in Wales, showing what looks like a child in a hat enjoying snowfall and, around the corner, revealing that the seeming snowflakes actually come from a fire spewing ash.
Ephrat Livni is a Times reporter covering breaking news around the world. She is based in Washington.
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