Street art isn’t new to the city of Lexington, but there is a new artist on the scene.  The artist calls himself Fifth Third Banksy, and he’s been gaining notoriety all over town by tagging local financial institutions with his graffiti. Fifth Third Banksy’s latest canvas is Lexington’s tallest building, 5/3 Bank’s Big Blue Building.

Speaking anonymously from Joel Pett’s living room, Fifth Third Banksy, who totally isn’t Joel Pett, gave us the inside scoop on why he’s ventured into the exciting world of street art.

“What I love about graffiti art is it lets you do cartoons on buildings instead of stupid old newspapers. I used to love tagging newspapers, but then the one in Lexington moved to Louisville, so I turned to financial institutions instead.”

The Big Blue Building is just the latest in a long line of respected financial institutions to fall victim to Fifth Third Banksy’s sick skills. Others include U.S. Bank on Richmond Rd, Bank Of The Bluegrass on Southland Dr, and Cash Tyme on Versailles Rd.

While some people around town see the street art as nothing more than an unlawful act of vandalism, others admire Fifth Third Banksy for the profound statements he’s making with his art. Melvin Mathers, a teller at Forcht Bank, was nearly moved to tears when he saw what Fifth Third Banksy created on the Forcht Bank sign.

“He replaced our logo with a picture of a spoon and then over the top of ‘Forcht’ he wrote ‘Spoon’ so it said Spoon Bank. I felt like that was an extremely moving and powerful statement.”

You can view some of Fifth Third Banksy’s art below: