NOTTINGHAM (England) • The elusive British street artist Banksy confirmed last Saturday that a new artwork that appeared on a wall in Nottingham, central England, is his work. It depicts a young girl using a bicycle tyre as a hula-hoop.

The work appeared last Tuesday on the red brick wall of a beauty salon, next to a bicycle that was locked to a metal signpost and missing its back wheel.

A picture of the work in the student area of the city was posted on Banksy's Instagram feed and website last Saturday.

Banksy is known for witty artworks that often make powerful references to world affairs.

His works this year have alluded to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement.

In August, Banksy funded a boat crewed by volunteers to rescue refugees in the Mediterranean attempting to reach Europe from Africa.

His "remix" of a masterpiece by Impressionist painter Claude Monet is going up for auction on Wednesday. It is expected to fetch between £3 million (S$5.2 million) and £5 million, Sotheby's said.

In Show Me The Monet from 2005, Banksy used oil on canvas to recreate Monet's famously serene and verdant painting of the wooden footbridge that straddled the French artist's beloved lily pond in his garden at Giverny.

But in Banksy's version, the idyll has turned into a modern-day dum-ping ground where two abandoned shopping trolleys and an orange traffic cone float in the water.

In October last year, a large Banksy painting depicting primates sitting in Britain's Parliament sold for nearly £9.9 million, a record price at auction for a work by the street artist, according to Sotheby's.

In 2018, another Banksy canvas, Girl With Balloon, shredded itself in front of shocked onlookers at a Sotheby's auction just as it was sold.

REUTERS