Council RETURNS Banksy’s new Valentine’s Day artwork: Freezer which formed part of mural re-appears

A fridge freezer removed by council workers from the Banksy‘s new artwork in Margate was returned today less than 24 hours after it was removed. 

Council workers rushed to the scene on Tuesday to remove the appliance, just hours after Banksy confirmed it was his work, because they wanted to ensure it was safe for the public – but frustrated locals have instead insisted they should focus on flytipping. 

The artwork, titled ‘Valentine’s Day mascara’, appeared on the side of a building in Margate on February 13 before being confirmed as an original Banksy by the artist on Instagram yesterday.

It features a woman in a blue pinny and yellow washing-up gloves with a swollen eye and broken tooth. 

It appears she has just pushed her partner, whose feet are also depicted, into the chest freezer. 

Alongside the painting and freezer, the artist also posed objects including a broken garden chair, blue crate and a smashed beer bottle. A cooking pot was also spotted at the scene. 

These, too, were removed by contractors working for Thanet Council.

But today a Kent council confirmed the old freezer has been placed back in its original spot – restoring the piece back the way the artist intended.

A spokesman for Thanet District Council said: ‘The freezer which council operatives removed from the Banksy installation in Margate has now been made safe. It has been returned to its original position at the site of the artwork today.

‘The council has a duty to ensure the ongoing safety of the public; it was necessary to carry out works to the freezer for health and safety reasons.

‘Banksy raises the important issue of domestic abuse in this artwork. 

‘We are in touch with the owner of the property to understand their intentions around the preservation of the piece and to secure the best possible outcome for the local community and victims of domestic abuse.’

Local residents and visitors had reacted with shock and anger when the council showed up just hours after the artwork’s installation to remove the items – but a council spokesperson has since confirmed that the freezer will return. 

A Thanet Council spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘We are aware that the graffiti artist known as Banksy has confirmed that the mural that has appeared recently in Margate is his. 

‘The graffiti is situated on a wall of a privately owned property. A fridge freezer which is believed to have been part of the installation has been removed by council operatives on the grounds of safety as it was on public land.

‘The fridge freezer is now in storage and will be returned once it has been made safe to the public. We will be contacting the owner of the property to discuss the options to preserve the artwork for the district.’

The artwork, which appeared on the back of a building just off Grosvenor Place in Margate, Kent, saw crowds of Banksy fans flock to the seaside town to pose for photos by the painting, which depicts a battered 1950s housewife chucking her male partner into a fridge-freezer.

One artist was seen painting a copy of the Banksy in his own depiction on canvas on Tuesday.

After its removal and before its reinstallation, members of the public posed for amusing photos in which they replaced the freezer with items including a wheelie bin and even a car. 

North Thanet MP Sir Roger Gale said the council’s decision to dismantle the artwork  was ‘heavy-handed’ and hopes it can be ‘preserved and displayed safely so that as many people as possible can see it’. 

‘I know there are people who are saying: ‘Oh they should never have done this, they should have left it as it was.’ You can’t,’ he said.

Sir Roger, whose constituency includes Margate in Kent, told the PA news agency: ‘I think it’s an extremely impressive and extremely clever piece of art.

‘And I hope and believe that it can and it should be preserved and displayed safely so that as many people as possible can see it.’

Sir Roger described the decision by council officials to remove the piece without initially explaining what they were going to do as ‘rather heavy-handed’, but clarified that he was not criticising them.

‘If you’ve got something as potentially dangerous as a chest freezer into which a child could climb and suffocate, you actually can’t responsibly just leave it, you have to do something about it to make it safe.’

Sir Roger said he regularly works with the council on the development of Margate but feels the future of the artwork will be one for the local authority and health and safety experts.

He said: ‘On the assumption that an agreement can be reached with the property owner and with the artist, which I think is important, and with all these safety considerations taken into account, if there is a way, and I’m sure there is, of displaying this so that as many people as want to try and see it, then I’d be very, very happy with that.’

Dan Bambridge-Higgins, who captured the moment the freezer was taken away, tweeted: ‘You can’t get them to sort out any fly tipping but hilariously sad that the instant reaction to a new Banksy in Margate by @ThanetCouncil is to remove it!’ 

One tenant said: ‘I’m absolutely upset because it’s not really nice. It was part of the art, they should be very happy because Margate could get bigger attention, positive attention.

‘Why did they move those parts? It’s just silly.’

Megan Simmonds, 29, lives just metres away from Banksy’s latest artwork, called the council’s actions ‘bizarre’.

‘The council have removed a chair, a saucepan and have just taken the fridge in a van,’ she said. 

‘It seems bizarre, it’s just the painting left. The fridge was definitely a big part of the piece.’

She claimed she asked the people who removed the items why they were doing so and they replied: ‘Someone told them on the council, they are just doing the task, it’s not their idea but they must do it.’ 

She and her partner Joss Lavender, 31, may have spotted the artist themselves when they saw a white van and a man in a ‘big orange coat’ on the Sunday morning. When they left their home, they spotted the artwork.

‘I thought it was Banksy straight away, and there was another guy photographing it which made me believe it was someone well known,’ Megan said. 

‘I guess it’s exciting. This area can be a bit dull at this time of year and it’s bringing a bit of light.

‘It’s an important and brutal message. There isn’t enough help out there for domestic violence often leading people to take it into their own hands.’

The original post to Banksy’s 11.8 million Instagram followers confirming the piece was his has already generated hundreds of thousands of likes and comments. 

The title is a play on the infamous prohibition-era Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, when seven members and associates of Chicago’s North Side Gang were gunned down. 

It is believed the artwork is a means of shedding light on the issues of violence against women.   

According to the Office for National Statistics: ‘In the year ending March 2020, the Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated 1.6 million women aged 16 to 74 years in England and Wales experienced domestic abuse, around 7 per cent of the female population.’

Banksy has used Kent buildings as his canvas on more than one occasion – recently in other seaside towns such as Folkestone and Dover. 

His Brexit-themed Dover piece portrayed the image of a workman on a ladder chipping away one of the stars of the EU flag. The artwork, which was valued at £1 million, was controversially painted over, leaving a giant white square in its place.  

Banksy has previously painted artwork on Valentine’s Day. In 2020, he confirmed artwork that appeared in Bristol of a girl firing red flowers made with spray-painted ivy from a catapult was his. 

The piece was extra special as it featured 3D flowers attached to the wall. 

The piece was subsequently vandalised, which prompted the owners of the house on which the graffiti was stencilled to cover over one part of the ruined artwork while encasing the other in a transparent box to prevent further damage.

A brand new tag depicting a masked man attempting to pry away the covering with a crowbar appeared at the site last year, fuelling speculation that Banksy himself may have reappeared to graffiti the same location almost two years on.

However, nothing was confirmed as the artist did not post anything about it on his account. 

In December, the anonymous graffiti artist announced they had created 50 screenprints which would be sold to raise funds for a charity supporting the people of Ukraine. 

Banksy previously confirmed they had spent time in Ukraine after posting a video of an artist spray-painting designs in the war-torn country and speaking to locals.

In a piece the artist shared online, a female gymnast can be seen balancing on her hands on rubble at the bottom of a an apartment building, which has been completely gutted by Russian shelling. 

Speculation had been mounting that the anonymous graffiti icon was in the war-torn country after a series of murals appeared in the town of Borodyanka, about an hour’s drive north-west of the capital.

Another showed two children using a metal tank trap as a seesaw, while a separate piece in nearby Irpin showed a rhythmic gymnast waving a ribbon while wearing a neck brace. 

However, the mural which Banksy chose to share with his Instagram followers was that of the female gymnast balancing on a damaged building.

He later shared a video on his Instagram account which showed him completing the artworks in Ukraine.