The Timeless Elegance of a Spray-Painted Phallus

This brilliant display of human ingenuity—sprayed haphazardly onto the ancient rock face on Roseberry Topping—is truly a sight to behold. The “artist,” undoubtedly a revolutionary thinker of his age and who clearly imagines himself—undoubtedly masculine, of course—as the Teesside Banksy, has chosen this timeless canvas to bless us with his daring vision. The frantic scrawls of black spray paint—black symbolizing sophistication—applied with all the care of a toddler with a crayon, scream rebellion and urgency, as if begging us to admire his deep, unfiltered genius.

The clash between the rugged splendour of nature and the vulgar graffiti could not be more poetic. What better way to highlight the contradictions of modern life than by defacing natural beauty? The crudely drawn, drooping phallus, depicted from the flattering angle of between-the-legs voyeurism, is a triumph of nuanced symbolism—no doubt a testament to the artist’s juvenile fixation on his own questionable virility.

In the end, this masterpiece does succeed in one thing: reminding us that humanity’s capacity for creating meaning is matched only by its asinine talent for ruining our perfectly good natural heritage.