Rhino emerged on Westmoor Street in London’s Charlton area in 2024, a striking mural offering an ironic critique of urban decay and nature’s place in city life.

The piece is the eighth in a series where Banksy shared a new animal-themed mural daily from August 5 to August 13, 2024.

This series included animals such as a goat, elephants, monkeys, a wolf, pelicans, piranhas, and a gorilla; each mural appeared in a different part of London, surprising viewers.

As part of the series, Rhino continues Banksy’s recurring themes of “displacement” and “nature’s place.”

The mural depicts a rhinoceros appearing to climb onto an old Nissan Micra, with a traffic cone on the car’s hood cleverly resembling the rhino’s horn.

The car was used as part of the mural, reflecting Banksy’s approach to incorporating the environment into his art. The dilapidated Nissan Micra symbolizes urban decay, while the rhinoceros represents the power and resilience of the wild. The rhino climbing the car ironically reflects nature’s intrusion into urban spaces and humanity’s loss of control over the natural world; the traffic cone resembling a horn enhances this irony. Banksy highlights the conflict between nature and the man-made environment, critiquing how nature’s wild power persists and infiltrates the concrete and metal world of cities.

Hours after its appearance, Rhino was defaced with a white graffiti tag by an individual, and the car was removed the next morning. Local authorities installed a protective screen to preserve the mural, sparking discussions about the preservation of street art in public spaces.