Has Banksy lost that edge? His style is now as ubiquitous and cosily British as Union Flag-stamped tea-towels. And his work commands the kind of prices that suggest a bubble about to burst. His Girl with Balloon was sold for £1m in 2018. Yet when it was put up again in 2021, it commanded £18.5m – despite the artist partially destroying it live in the auction house with a shredder concealed in the frame. He has become an elder statesman of the street-art scene: too successful to be truly avant-garde, but supportive of younger artists through schemes such as Waterloo’s Cans Festival and Dismaland in Weston-super-Mare. 

But above all, he has helped to shepherd street art towards mainstream acceptance. And public attitudes appear to have changed for good. Graffiti is no longer seen as a symptom of social malaise; instead, around the world, many authorities tolerate it as a harmless – if occasionally unruly – outlet for creative anti-establishment energy. Melbourne and Miami have “graffiti lanes” which are given over to street art. And Lisbon’s city council organises street-art tours, encouraging tourists to spend money in poorer neighbourhoods they wouldn’t otherwise visit. Indeed, some now see it even as a harbinger of gentrification, as developers commission the same artists whom they’re rapidly pricing out.

Yet despite inflated prices, internet hype and toothless Banksy knock-offs, Edwards is confident that for a younger, unknown generation, spraying away in our cities every night, the essence of street art – scruffy, unsanctioned and just beyond the law – remains unchanged. 

“A moon rock is amazing, but if you take it off the Moon, and put it on a shelf, it’s pretty boring. And it’s the same with putting street art in a gallery,” he says. “But there will always be great new artists. And there will always be kids with cans out there trying to reclaim the streets.”