Basquiat, Banksy, and the Art of Children

I’ve been a little under the weather the past few days, and being still is not something I do well. My mind is always in motion, always connecting, creating, wondering. While I wouldn’t trade that for anything, boredom creeps in quickly when my body forces me to slow down.

So, I turned to my art books. I revisited Basquiat (always my favorite), Banksy, Haring, and others. I lingered over their lines, their symbols, their fearless messages.

And I was reminded why I love street art so deeply.

I have always been fascinated by street art. I know it can be controversial, and I understand why. Some see it as vandalism, a mark left where it doesn’t belong. But when I look at street art, I see something else entirely. I see honesty. I see courage. I see people speaking loudly in a world that often asks them to be quiet.

Last year, I introduced a kindergarten class to street art. We explored the work of Banksy and created our own Banksy-inspired pieces. Watching five- and six-year-olds interpret themes of identity, humor, and justice through stencil-like imagery was nothing short of magical. It confirmed something I’ve felt for a long time: street art and children’s art share a deep and beautiful connection.

While Banksy’s work was a perfect introduction for the class, Basquiat has always been my personal favorite. There is something about his mark-making that feels strikingly similar to the way children draw: raw, symbolic, layered with meaning that doesn’t always need explanation. His crowns, repeated words, fractured figures, and almost scribbled symbols feel like visual thinking in motion, much like the personal symbols children return to again and again in their work. In early childhood classrooms, we see this symbolic language emerge as hearts, superheroes, invented letters, spirals, marks that carry deep personal significance. Basquiat’s work feels like that same honest urgency, but on a city wall or a canvas instead of a classroom page.

Street art is a language. Children’s art is a language. Both are visual forms of storytelling, unfiltered, unapologetic, and deeply personal. Through these marks, colors, and symbols, we learn something about the artist: their fears, their hopes, their questions, their protests, their voice.

Street art and children’s art both resist formal art rules. They exist outside galleries, outside critique panels, outside the pressure to be “right.” They don’t ask permission. They don’t worry about staying inside the lines; sometimes they don’t even acknowledge that lines exist.

Both feel free in a way that trained artists sometimes have to relearn. They remind us that art does not begin with technique; it begins with a need to express something.

In the classroom, I am immersed in children’s art every day. It is spontaneous, expressive, and full of truth. Children rarely censor themselves. They draw what they feel, what they see, what they wonder. Street artists, in many ways, do the same. They take their thoughts out of their minds and into public space, insisting that others notice.

Street art is hope.

Street art is courage.

Street art is change.

Street art is longing.

Street art is honest.

Street art resembles a child’s mark, messy, bold, and full of life. It reminds me that creativity doesn’t need permission, that expression can be fearless, and that every mark, on a wall or a classroom page, carries meaning. In both, we see courage, honesty, and the beauty of speaking without apology.