Let’s start at the beginning, when Banksy was hardly out of primary school, a guy called Blek Le Rat was already busy creating stencil art, so please, if you do have a copy of Banksy’s book "Wall and Piece" and you’ve read his explanation of how he first thought of using stencils, then find the page, and take out a thick black marker, and scrawl out the story.

Sure Banksy was chased by the police, and I’m sure he was inspired to use stencils to speed up his graffiti artistry if only to avoid capture (which he was several times), but I’ve come across so many blogs recently where people seem to think he actually invented the process, it’s easier if we just ignore that page. He’s a great guy (I’m sure), Robert Gunningham loves his animals, and he’s created some truly influential pieces that I’d gamble will find some dusty corner in the annals of art history – I’d be the first to commend the man and his art, and have on many occasions. Banksy is a dedicated and gutsy artist no matter what. But if you want to know who started stencil art then apart from just about every industrial worker and army recruit throughout the early 20th century who frequently stencilled words such as "GARBAGE" on the side of dumpsters, or "ARMY" on the sides thousands of WW2 Jeeps, you’re going to have to get your proverbial teeth in to Blek Le Rat.

As you can tell straight away, this guy isn’t from the UK, he isn’t from America, he’s actually French, a Parisian to be precise, he was born way, way back in 1952, before Banksy was born, or perhaps even his parents. Blek Le Rat aka Xavier Prou has been stencilling since the early Eighties and will always be considered the Godfather of stencil art even if our current generation of graffiti fans, will for the most part, neglect to mention him. Now if we’re really going to get pedantic about it, Blek wasn’t the pioneer of all stencil art, for as far back as 1978 there was the American artist John Fekner who bored of his Long Island studio space began to wander outside and create his work in the streets, or the nearby underpass to be precise. He specialised in stencilling random quotes and arbitrary municipal symbols, and does so do this day, his work has obviously taken a more graphic turn, influenced by the changes in a scene that hadn’t even been conceived when he first began to graffiti. Nevertheless, his work is less recognisably "street art" as Blek’s, and however unfairly, with the rise of Banksy, Shepard Fairey, D*face and others, it’s obvious who had the biggest influence over them all.

But if we really want to nit pick here then look back in history, as far back as you can go, and now take a warp speed jump a few more tens of thousand of years, and there, somewhere in a cave, daubing blood against a wall is a caveman, his stencil is his hand, that is the first Banksy. But lets’ keep some perspective here, I can’t believe I just wrote that, the man with no remaining natural sense of perspective whatsoever (I’ll explain that tale or ten another time – don’t take hallucinogens kids), anyway…

Blek, had a culturally mixed background, son of a Chinese mother, a French father (who fought in WW1 and was physically and mentally broken by another in Algeria), and a grandson to a Jewish grandmother – he was soon drawn to New York, a racial melting pot that had already spawned a thriving graffiti scene. Blek spent a decade studying architecture whilst artists such as Basquiat and Keith Haring were making their name in the states, he decided the time was right

Blek was fascinated by the vast array of graffiti and tagging on the N.Y subway network, the trains, the tunnels, it was everywhere, he knew he wanted his art to reflect this exciting scene, and soon realised the only way he could guarantee evading capture from the police was to use stencils – sounds familiar? Ahem. Blek once spotted an old stencil piece of Italian fascist dictator Mussolini as a child, his father told him it was propaganda. Blek later came to the conclusion, a very sound one at that, that propaganda needn’t be a tool of the state, but could be used as a way of empowering the individual, encouraging them to question authority, and indeed incite change for the better.

If you’re wondering why the name "Blek Le Rat", it’s based upon an old comic called Blek Le Roc about a fur trapper in the USA fighting the British colonialists, the main idea of rats in his work are down to a simple world play, there’s a rat in art. Beyond that the rat can be a carrier of viruses, a viral messenger if you will, spreading the word of dissent amongst the people, rather a nice piece of metaphor as far as I’m concerned.

If you want to find out more abot Blek here are a few links to get you started:-

Blek’s Official Site – http://bleklerat.free.fr/

Blek Wiki – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blek_le_Rat

Buy Blek Originals (if you’re rich) – http://www.brandler-galleries.com/shop/prod/226/blek-le-rat.html

This post is tagged Blek Le Rat, d*face, Fekner, Godfather of Graffiti, graffiti, graffiti art, Shepard Fairey, stencil art, street art, Xavier Prou