One of the elephants now looks like a zebra hybrid (Picture: SWNS)
Another of Banksy’s new London artworks has been defaced less than a fortnight after it appeared.
Whoever did it does at least seem to have had some artistic idea behind it, as they sprayed white stripes onto one of the elephant heads that appeared in Chelsea but not the other.
Neighbour Chiara Burrell, 20, noticed it had been defaced and said she felt ‘upset’ that someone had marked the artwork.
She said: ‘When it was in it’s original state I thought it was really cool. Just days later I went back ands saw the white lines.
‘I’m shocked and upset that someone has vandalised it to be honest.
‘I saw it from afar and I went closer and there were some people looking at it a bit funny and I started second guessing whether it was always there.
‘I think it’s vandalism but I’m not sure.’
How the artwork looked originally (Picture: Getty)
Banksy’s painting of a rhinoceros mounting a car was also defaced (Picture: Simone Joiner/Getty)
The elephants appeared on Edith Terrace, near Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, earlier this month and caused excitement – although not for one dog walker, who strolled past without noticing and ended up pictured on Banksy’s own Instagram page.
Lucy Boultbee Brooks, 32, told Metro.co.uk: ‘There was no sign anyone had been there, or anything had been painted, and I feel a bit embarrassed to say I didn’t even see the elephants.’
It comes after another piece in the same series was vandalised with a white tag by a youth in a balaclava.
That one showed a rhinoceros mounting a Nissan Micra with a traffic cone placed on its hood like a horn.
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It appeared on Westmoor Street, Charlton, near the Thames Barrier in south east London – but it wasn’t long before it became a target.
Another of his recent works, a howling wolf silhouetted on a satellite television dish on Rye Lane in Peckham, was stolen completely by a group of masked men within an hour of it being spotted.
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