Banksy’s identity revealed, putting Park City murals back in focus

Main Street Park City's Banksy. Photo: Scarlet Sappho

PARK CITY, Utah — A new Reuters investigation says it has identified the artist known as Banksy as Robin Gunningham, a Bristol-born man who Reuters reported later used the name David Jones. However, Banksy has not publicly confirmed the claim, and his attorney disputed parts of the reporting. Reuters said it tied a 2000 New York Police Department confession, court records, travel documents, and interviews to the long-rumored identity.

The report is drawing fresh attention to Park City, where Banksy left a lasting mark during the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, when his documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop premiered here. Sundance Institute wrote in 2023 that Banksy created multiple works in Park City during that visit, including a rat, an angel boy, and the better-known “Camera Man and Flower” mural on Main Street.

That Main Street mural, “Camera Man and Flower,” remains the most visible of the local works, located at 402 Main St., on the side of Java Cow.

TownLift has tracked local interest in the mural for years. In 2021, TownLift reported that Park City’s Banksy artwork was “showing some signs of age” but remained “a magnet for visitors.” In 2022, TownLift referenced the Park City piece while reporting on Banksy’s work in Ukraine, noting how his art here also appeared seemingly overnight. In 2024, TownLift again connected Park City to a newly surfaced Banksy mural in London.

Even so, Reuters’ findings do not entirely close the book on the artist’s anonymity. The Guardian reported this week that Gunningham has been publicly linked to Banksy for years and described the new reporting as a significant new confirmation rather than a wholly new theory.

For Park City, the renewed attention falls on a familiar piece of Sundance-era lore: a globally recognized artist whose work still quietly draws visitors down Main Street, even as the mystery behind the name remains part of the story.