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Tribute to Ozone

BANKSY
Street Art
Stencil
2007

London TQ328825
Tube Old Street

The 12th of January 2007 Ozone and Wants were spotted spraying graffiti at a London Underground depot between Barking and Upney stations in east London. They had apparently scaled the 3m-high palisade security fencing, and were planning to spraypaint the side of a train.

According to the British Transport police (BTP), security guards spotted them and shouted, at which point the two men dashed out across the tracks, only to be struck by a westbound District line train. The driver reported feeling a "tremendous jolt" and immediately brought the train to a halt. Both men died at the scene from massive multiple injuries.

Being Banksy the most popular writer, Ozone once dogged one of his works -the Pulp Fiction banana men- on this air shaft at Old Street Tube station and wrote: “If it's better next time, I'll leave it.”

The dogged mural was later buffed by Transport for London and then re-dogged by Banksy as a memento mori in Ozone's honour: it now depicts an angel in a flak jacket, contemplating a baseball-capped skull.

When Ozone was killed, Banksy's website mourned him so: "When we lost Ozone we lost a fearless writer and, as it turns out, a pretty perceptive art critic. Rest in piece (sic)."

contributed by Comment Public Art Project