Is this man Banksy?

By Jack Fifield

A builder accused of being Banksy after he was snapped next to one of the elusive artist's works says people need to "grow up and get over it".

Builder George Georgiou, 69, was first mistaken for the famed tagger when he was spotted installing a screen in front of a freshly-painted murals near Finsbury Park, London, in March 2024.

Commentators noted that the north London builder – wearing rectangular sunglasses – bore a striking resemblance to a photograph of Bristolian Robin Gunningham, long-rumoured to be the real identity of Banksy.

This led to some wondering whether Georgiou was actually the same person.

Last week, the Reuters news agency published an investigation in which it revealed a handwritten confession signed by Gunningham and given to police in New York following an arrest for defacing a billboard with a new mouth and a speech bubble in 2000.

This has reignited interested in Banksy's identity - and put the picture of Georgiou in the news again.

But speaking Thursday, March 19, Georgiou said: “It’s extremely annoying, I just think people need to grow up and get over it.

“It was explained when the picture was first taken two years ago – why it’s come up again, I don’t know.”

The builder, who was doing maintenance on the building owned by his son’s letting agency when he was snapped, said he couldn’t see any resemblance between himself and the photo of Gunningham.

He said: “None at all, I think there’s a lot of wishful thinking going on.”

Despite the resemblance, Georgiou said he isn’t a fan of the artist’s work.

He added: “No-one knows who Banksy is, no-one’s actually seen him. It’s graffiti, that’s all it is – it’s just graffiti.”

However, he doesn’t think the artist should be arrested.

He said: “There’s so much interest in it, it’s not really doing any real harm – apart from to people like me. Apart from that, hmm, who cares?”

The Hornsey Road mural, consisting of green paint behind a freshly pollarded cherry tree to give it the appearance of leaves, appeared in March 2024 alongside a stencil of a person pressure washing.

At the time, the founder of Haringey Tree Protectors told the Big Issue that the pollarding was "very harsh" and like a "horror show".