Over the past days, some Valletta street furniture, including MaltaPost boxes were painted over with copies of images of iconic old master paintings.

This is the work of a French graffiti stencil painter Christian Guemy also known as C215 who seeks to imitate Banksy, the pseudonym of the Scarlet Pimpernel of street art, whose works are world-famous.

Cries of disapproval were registered when the painted post boxes disappeared just as quickly as the paintings had appeared. Some media reported that MaltaPost had simply painted them over - thus destroying the would-be works of art. Indeed Valletta Mayor Professor Alexiei Dingli too expressed his disapproval at the disappearance of the graffiti in a comment on Guemy's Facebook wall.

When contacted, a MaltaPost spokesperson denied this and it was confirmed that boxes were in storage so as to avoid other graffiti painters being attracted to deface them or follow suit as has often happened in the past.

We were also told that the Frenchman had applied stencils over two types of boxes, the cast iron MEPA scheduled pillar boxes, and the more common sheet metal boxes. Apparently these were painted over without permission and the MaltaPost spokesman expressed doubt on the artistic value of stencil painting given that the same images were repeatedly used on different items of street furniture, such as lampposts, post boxes and distribution boxes. The technique used is a relatively simple one and stencils are easily and cheaply obtainable even through eBay, while numerous clips on You Tube give demonstrations on how to make your own stencils of masterpieces including the Mona Lisa.

(Top - a street in Rome; Above - a street in Malta)

Notwithstanding that in his home country Guemy practices his hobby on surfaces of run-down buildings and street furniture, though not on scheduled buildings or objects, he has been arrested a number of times.  A random "Wannabe Banksy" Google search will show up pages upon pages of such painters, MaltaPost said.

The spokesman said "nobody should feel entitled to deface third party property  - no matter how artistically talented such a person may consider himself to be - unless with the prior permission of the owners. Irrespective of the quality of the art, defacing public monuments or objects that are scheduled is simply unacceptable."  

(Valletta post box)

The same method was used in September last year when another stencil artist applied his 'art ' form on the Valletta City Gate entrance.