A Madonna nursing a child—an ancient, intimate gesture full of tenderness. But here, instead of milk, there is a small bottle marked with a hazard symbol: a black skull. The label warns that the contents are toxic.
This is Toxic Mary, one of Banksy’s most famous and controversial works, created in 2003 as a screen print. The scene is simple yet unsettling. The Virgin, depicted according to classical iconographic standards, becomes a symbol of contaminated love. Banksy attacks one of the strongest symbols of Western culture—sacred motherhood—to denounce a world where even what is meant to nourish can turn into poison.
What is toxic, according to Banksy? Education? Religion? Institutional authority that should protect us? The work offers no easy answers. Yet it is clear that blind faith, institutional power, and propaganda are all being called into question. The artist presents them as forces that, instead of nourishing, can suffocate or poison future generations.
The technique is minimal: few colors, clean lines, and a somber atmosphere. As often happens in his screen prints, Banksy constructs an image that straddles the sacred and the profane, critique and irony. The message is direct, almost brutal, yet not devoid of poetry: as if even in this dangerous act, a form of desperate love survives. Toxic Mary is part of a limited edition, now highly sought after. Beyond its collectible value, it remains one of the most emblematic works of Banksy’s style: provocative, symbolic, capable of startling with few marks, and lingering in the mind long after one looks away.
