LONDON — A British art dealer says he has bought a mural stenciled by street artist Banksy on a garage wall in Wales for more than $129,000.
The artwork in Port Talbot shows a child playing in falling ash from a dumpster fire, an apparent reference to the steel town’s air pollution.
Security guards were hired to protect the work after it appeared in December on a steelworker’s garage.
John Brandler of Brandler Galleries in eastern England said Friday he has agreed that the mural will stay in place for at least two years.
He said “I want to make Port Talbot a go-to place rather than a go-from place. Within a short time I’m thinking of bringing five or six more Banksys to Port Talbot. Let’s do an exhibition.”
Brandler praised the garage’s owner, Ian Lewis, who turned down higher offers in order to keep the work in Port Talbot, according to the BBC.
“Ian was amazing not going for the highest price to keep it in the community,” Brandler told the BBC. “I think an awful lot of people would have taken the money and run, but he wasn’t selfish and he deserves recognition for that.”
Lewis, 55, who found the mural a week before Christmas, described the discovery as “life changing.”
“I think the town has fallen in love with it, I think everybody loves it and it would have been a shame for it to move from the area,” he told the BBC.
– From news service reports
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