' The rat is my emblem, it's my coat of arms' is what the artist once poetically explained. Blek le Rat does not hesitate to use sensitive words and to take on sensitive subjects, and that became evident on the very beginning of his engagement with the art world. Xavier Prou, which is his real name and we can now say it loud and clear because his identity was revealed back in 1991, continues to influence many street artists, and to amaze us all to this day. Rats were inspirational to him because they are, like he said himself, the only free animals in the city, but they also spread the plague rapidly, and it is something he finds analogous to street art. Parisians will probably not forget the giant rat that he painted in their city, which had special symbolic meaning for Blek le Rat. His pseudonym has a lot to do with the first motive he happened to depict on the streets, and that was, obviously, a rat.

Blek le Rat is the French pioneer of stencil art, a street art master whose work was both influenced by the New York graffiti style and picturesque architecture of Paris.

And when being arrested for art doesn’t stop one from finding the ways to make it, you know that nothing is going to stop them. When Banksysays that his art originates in someone else’s, he must be talking about an icon.

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