A woman dressed in domestic clothes, yellow gloves and a plaid apron, with her hands stretched forward after having just thrown a man into an abandoned refrigerator, from which only a pair of legs and black leather shoes are sticking out.
This is the subject of the new work shown by street artist Banksy, painted on the wall of Grosvenor Place, a short walk from the fire station in Margate, an English town a few miles south of London.
If you look closely, you can see that the woman’s face is marked by a closed eye with obvious symbols of violence and by a smile to which a tooth, the probable cause of the attack itself, is attached. Emerging from these details is the theme of the work, ironically called “Valentine’s Day Mascara,” an act of denunciation against domestic violence and presented, ironically and cynically on the day when love is celebrated.
This is not the first time Banksy has presented a work on Feb. 14; in fact, already in 2020 a little girl and a Cupid had appeared as a surprise on the walls of Bristol.
