The organisers of a spoof British art competition claim they have caught the guerrilla artist Banksy trying to out-spoof them.

The judges of the annual Turnip Prize were far from impressed by a professional-looking entry they suspect came from the secretive Bristol graffiti artist. Under the strict entry criteria for the pastiche competition the artists must have spent as little time on their work as possible.

Suspicion has mounted about the identity of the artist since the artwork was dumped outside the New Inn pub in Somerset. The pub has been running its own annual art prize as an antidote to the “pretentious” Turner Prize since 1999.

The anonymous entry bears all the sardonic hallmarks of Banksy, the anonymous street artist whose work now sells to wealthy collectors for hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The painting shows a stencilled Mona Lisa firing a turnip from a bazooka. The rocket-launched vegetable is shown flying over a seaside pier below the word ‘Banksea’.

Read More: Banksy ‘caught red-handed’ in art prank

You know. If you dig enough around the net you can find him. Not that hard at all. Or maybe I’m just good at tracking info down on the net. Either way here’s the story.

Hip British graffiti artist Bansky, whose true identity has long remained a mystery, was thrust into the spotlight Wednesday after the publication of a snatched picture allegedly of him at work.

A man believed to be Banksy, whose works sell for tens of thousands of pounds around the world, was caught on camera working on a new picture in an east London street, according to The Times.

His latest work depicts a huge sunflower, formed by diverting the double yellow parking lines from a street gutter across a pavement up onto the side of a house, flanked by a picture of a paint-roller wielding artist.

But the artist himself was believed to have been caught at work for the first time, by a passerby who took a picture on his mobile phone camera, the daily said.

“We never confirm or deny whether any image shows Banksy,” a spokesman for the artist told The Times, which printed the photo of a black-haired man in jeans a camouflage jacket, with a pollution-protecting mask on his head.

Read More: Wall of secrecy: elusive graffiti artist uncovered?

Banksy, an anonymous graffiti artist who graduated from the U.K. streets to the auction rooms, will be represented in the London October sales with at least eight works at Sotheby’s.

Banksy’s “David,” a 2006 fiberglass tribute to Michelangelo’s 500-year-old statue in Florence, has a top estimate of 150,000 pounds ($299,655) for Sotheby’s contemporary art auction on Oct. 12, according to preliminary catalog information.

“Gangster Rat” from 2004, an acrylic and spray paint stencil on canvas, has a top estimate of 12,000 pounds for an Oct. 15-day sale.

Banksy spray-paints works of political satire in the London streets and has attracted collectors including artist Damien Hirst. Banksy’s record of 288,000 pounds was set for a design commissioned by the pop band Blur, at a Bonhams London auction in April, more than doubling the artist’s previous peak price.

Read More: Banksy’s `David,’ `Gangster Rat’ to Go on Sale at Sotheby’s

It seems that yet another Banksy masterpiece has been carelessly buffed. This time the price tag is much higher: £300,000!!

Workmen in London have painted over a 300,000 pound piece by world-renowned graffiti artist Banksy, reports said on Friday.

Although Banksy’s canvases are snapped up by celebrities such as Angelina Jolie for thousands of pounds, his stencilled graffiti creations can be found on walls and billboards around the capital.

Now one of these, a picture of John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson’s characters from the 1994 film “Pulp Fiction” holding bananas instead of guns, has been painted over by a graffiti removal team, the Daily Telegraph said.

Above: One of the copies produced of the famous Pulp Fiction piece by Banksy.

 
Read More: London workmen paint over graffiti by top artist

Just caught this one fresh from the wire.

An investigation was launched today after a £100,000 mural by graffiti artist Banksy was painted over by bungling council workers.

The 25ft painting, sprayed on the side of a row of garages in Bristol, was mistaken as vandalism by a graffiti removal team who covered the wall with thick black paint.

Locals are furious that the 10-year-old artwork, which is believed to be one of Banksy’s earliest free-painted murals, has been lost.

Bristol City Council, which has ordered all Banksy work to be preserved, has launched an investigation.

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