A SERIES of Banksy-style creations have been popping up around Hexham over the past few weeks, prompting speculation about who the mystery street artist might be.

Hallstile Bank played host to one, a picture of a street cleaner, in Banksy’s trademark stencil style, sweeping up broken hearts. Painted on what looked to be the door of a pine kitchen cupboard, the image was tied to railings at the buskers’ pitch at the bottom of the bank.

However, by the end of last week, the makeshift canvas appeared to have migrated to another outdoor exhibition space – this time Gilesgate car park opposite Core Music.

Whoever our creative picture bomber may be, they appear to have a similar satirical take on the world to Banksy, the underground graffiti artist whose works now fetch huge prices at auction.

One of the pieces, which was tied to railings near the Wentworth car park entrance, was of a street cleaner sweeping up stars from the European Union flag.

Meanwhile, a peace dove has landed on railings at the rear of the Queen’s Hall under the title Liberation with the tantalising tag, ‘Serann’.

Hexham’s gallery owners are as mystified as everyone else about the identity of the guerilla artist, who is polite enough not to graffiti buildings, choosing to attach his or her work to railings instead.

Ben Haslam, of Haslam’s of Hallgate, welcomed the visual intrusion. He said, “I think it’s great. Obviously there’s a little bit of plagiarism going on as the artist is clearly inspired by the graffiti artist, Banksy, although he has not quite got the guts to aerosol spray our historic buildings!

“It certainly gets people talking – who is this, is this Banksy? It gets you thinking.

“They are rather beautifully done, so it’s obviously someone with a bit of talent. It’s non-invasive and they do carry a clear message – certainly the European one was very poignant.

“Also, what I like is the idea of this artist who has obviously got skill, clandestinely going round showing their talent.

“There are lots of artists quietly beavering away and very few of them have a voice or get any recognition and maybe this is what they have to do. But then, maybe it’s a really established artist, who knows?”