Hanksy

Hanksy is the pseudonym for New York City-based street artist and parodist Adam Lucas, who also goes by Adam Himebauch. His artwork under the moniker Hanksy includes recreations of Banksy street art adapted to include a cartoon interpretation of actor Tom Hanks.

Beginning in 2022, Himebauch began working under his actual name and has advertised a documentary film chronicling his artistic origins.

Work as Hanksy
As Hanksy, Himebauch is recognized for painting pun-themed work related to popular culture on the street; for instance, combining the body of Banksy's classic rat with a cartoon face of actor Tom Hanks. The image went viral on social media, encouraging Hanksy to develop and expand his portfolio of popular culture mashup puns. Between 2011 and 2017, Hanksy created hundreds of images that he pasted on the streets and painted on canvases that were exhibited across the country. Banksy has yet to comment on the parody; however, Tom Hanks is supportive of the work and shared a photograph posing next to Hanksy on his Twitter account.

In 2015 he made work critical of Donald Trump's run for President of the United States. The image he created in protest, dubbed Tronald Dump by the Huffington Post, depicted the then candidate as a cartoonish pile of feces with flies encircling his head.

Hanksy's career
Hanksy's work has been discussed in numerous publications including: The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Magazine and The Washington Post and in 2016, a documentary series related to his installation Surplus Candy aired on Ovation TV. In 2021, three years after retiring his Hanksy persona, the artist released a collection of Hanksy NFT's on OpenSea.

Installations
In addition to his street and canvas art, Hanksy has created several interactive installations meant to engage his audience in innovative and participatory ways.

Surplus Candy (2014-ongoing)
Sparked by the success of the Best of the Worst installation, Hanksy began his Surplus Candy initiative—highly interactive events that he has hosted in multiple cities including New York City and Los Angeles. In each installment, Hanksy secures an abandoned space, transforming it with art and activity, then opens that space up to the public for only a couple of hours before taking it down. In 2014, when he first hosted Surplus Candy in Manhattan, Hanksy included twenty other artists. In 2015, when he installed the show in a dilapidated mansion in the historic West Adams district in Los Angeles, over 90 artists were involved.

Best of the Worst (2015)
In 2015, Hanksy mounted an interactive exhibition entitled Best of the Worst that featured some of his signature pun pieces, including portraits of Bill Murrito, Hamuel L. Jackson, Kanye Brest, Traylor Swift, Pikajew, Drak-o Malfoy and Mile E. Coyote. In addition to exhibiting his own work, Hanksy showcased pieces by fellow street artists, built a functional skateboarding ramp, included a photo booth, arcade games, balloon artist and a live-DJ.

To generate awareness of the exhibition and active interest in attending, Hanksy created Golden Tickets that he hid throughout Manhattan, teasing their location on social media. A homage to the 1971 fantasy film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, these tickets introduced the interactive nature of the event but also could be traded in for a limited edition work by the artist. The exhibition itself took place at a former Chase Bank on the Lower East Side that Hanksy transformed to look like a street in Chinatown.

TV series
To preserve a record of Hanksy's temporary installations, Ovation TV launched a six-episode series called "Hanksy Presents: Surplus Candy."

Work as Adam Lucas and Adam Himebauch
Working under the names Adam Lucas and Adam Himebauch rather than his street art moniker, Himebauch maintains his signature whimsy, humor and interest in conceptualism and performance. In 2020, the artist donated two paintings to a benefit auction held by Future Galerie to help raise money for SkyArt a free and accessible art center serving underprivileged youth in Chicago.

Back to the Future, 2022
In 2022, Himebauch created an immersive conceptual performance, fabricating the retrospective of an iconic artist from the 1970s and 1980s who happened to be himself aged by decades. Using faux archival footage, grainy photographs and advertisements for exhibitions that never took place and textbooks that were never written, Himebauch tested the boundaries of expectations and reality, of past and present and art and artifice.