Even Banksy, the anonymous street artist, is working from home these days and, like us, he’s getting a little stir crazy.
The graffiti bandit posted a new interior artwork to his website and Instagram account on Wednesday afternoon, adding a bit of levity to the tragic news cycle of recent weeks.
The new work is a domestic scene run amok—one that may resonate with the many households with homebound children, spouses, roommates, and pets. Cheekily titled My wife hates it when I work from home, the work shows a bathroom upended by stenciled rodents, scampering and careening off the fixtures. Two appear as if dangling from towel rings like trapeze artists; others use soap and toothpaste as personal trampolines; another sits on the edge of a tilted mirror, its reflection revealing yet another creature who is keeping tally marks like a prisoner marking the days of solitary confinement.
On Instagram, the artist has posted close-up shots of the mural, focusing on the painted animals on the wall. The rat, an anagram of the word “art,” is common feature in Banksy’s street works, and functions as an allegory in his critiques of capitalism and waste.
The artist, who is originally from Bristol, rarely offers any sense (fictional or otherwise) of his personal life, and judging by the ecstatic comments—”wife?!??!”—his fans are thrilled with this crumb.