The World's Largest Modern & Contemporary Prints & Editions Platform
Banksy™ Welcome Mat - Mixed Media by Banksy 2019 - MyArtBroker

Banksy™ Welcome Mat
Mixed Media

Banksy

£1,400-£2,100Value Indicator

$2,800-$4,150 Value Indicator

$2,500-$3,750 Value Indicator

¥13,000-¥19,000 Value Indicator

1,700-2,550 Value Indicator

$14,000-$21,000 Value Indicator

¥260,000-¥400,000 Value Indicator

$1,750-$2,650 Value Indicator

-9% AAGR

AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.

There aren't enough data points on this work for a comprehensive result. Please speak to a specialist by making an enquiry.

Medium: Mixed Media

Year: 2019

Size: H 43cm x W 63cm

Signed: No

Format: Mixed Media

TradingFloor

32 in network
8 want this
Find out how Buying or Selling works.
Track this artwork in realtime

Watch artwork, manage valuations, track your portfolio and return against your collection

Track auction value trend

The value of Banksy's Banksy™ Welcome Mat (2019) is estimated to be worth between £1,400 to £2,100. This mixed media artwork, which has not been signed, has shown consistent value growth since its first sale in June 2020. Over the past 12 months, the average selling price was £1,989 across 3 sales. This is a popular work, having been sold 26 times at auction. The hammer price has ranged from £660 in July 2022 to £5,214 in December 2020. The average annual growth rate of this piece is currently -9%. The edition size of this artwork is not limited.

Unlock up-to-the-minute market data on Banksy's Banksy™ Welcome Mat, login or create a free account today

Auction Results

Auction DateAuction HouseLocation
Hammer Price
Return to Seller
Buyer Paid
May 2024Carlo Bonte Auction Belgium
May 2024Los Angeles Modern Auctions United States
March 2024Rosebery's Fine Art Auctioneers United Kingdom
February 2024Chiswick Auctions United Kingdom
February 2023Chiswick Auctions United Kingdom
December 2022Koller Zurich Switzerland
October 2022Chiswick Auctions United Kingdom

Meaning & Analysis

Banksy™ Welcome Mat, released via the street artist’s 2019 Gross Domestic Product shop, is made of fabric from discarded, knockoff life vests, mocking their ineffectiveness as flotation devices. Sales proceeds aided refugee services, shining a light on the ongoing crisis and global injustice.
Along with the Banksy™ Early Learning Counting Set, this work presents a cutting take on the ongoing refugee crisis that has seen thousands of people risk their lives in the illegal crossing of the Mediterranean and the English Channel.

Ostensibly a welcome mat of the type seen outside many of Britain’s homes, the work reveals itself to be layered with poignant meaning, its bright and cheery message stitched together from the fabric of discarded life vests that promise to keep the migrant afloat in case of capsizing in rough seas. In the original description for the piece in the online Gross Domestic Product, customers were advised that the limited edition pieces ‘no longer constitute a valid buoyancy aid – although shockingly many never did – they're cheap fakes sold by people smugglers and don't actually float.’

While many other products in the shop seemed to capitalise on the things they were satirising this work offered a more sensitive approach. It was originally made in conjunction with the organisation 'Love Welcomes', who work with women held in detention camps in Greece. The GDP website also listed that all proceeds from the original sales were ‘retained locally to help refugees access key services.’

Combining compassion with wit, this work proves Banksy’s unfailing ability to both make light of tragedy and to highlight the unfairness of a world which forces families to flee their homes as a result of war and oppression. In this way the present work ties in with many of Banksy’s other pieces from the GDP shop, including Duck and Cover, which portrays unmanned drones, as well as earlier works of street art such as a mural painted in Venice which depicts a young child wearing a life vest and holding a flare.

The GDP project began as a showroom filled with Banksy products which was unveiled in October 2019 in Croydon, South London. Appearing almost overnight, the ‘shop’ became a viral sensation with visitors queuing round the block to get a look at Banksy’s new ‘homewares brand’.

The shop never opened however and customers were told to go online to purchase these products which ranged from the welcome mat seen here to a limited edition version of the stab vest worn by Stormzy at Glastonbury that same year. But once online customers could not buy products straight away; instead they were asked to answer the question ‘Why does art matter?’ which would then enter them into consideration for a piece. This was intended to avoid buyers acquiring pieces purely for investment, in a move that mirrored the original motivation behind the concept of the shop which was to prevent a greeting card company from trademarking the Banksy name. With GDP Banksy got there first, releasing a line of products that go beyond the cheap merchandise that usually imitates his designs in order to convey important messages about our society and to create innovative artworks at the same time.

More from Gross Domestic Product