What kind of artist chooses not to attend their own gallery opening? A cat who’s scared of getting arrested, that’s who. Say hello to renown graffiti artist Banksy, the English provocateur who has pulled stunts that would have less intelligent tricksters behind bars. Have no fear, this trickster keeps his identity a well-guarded secret (never doing face-to-face interviews). He chooses to operate well below the radar, under the city scope, much like the rats he admires and includes in many of his works.

“I love rats,” Banksy says. “They’ve invaded everywhere. From like the lowest place in the city to the highest. Maybe they represent the triumph of the little people, the unloved, over everything else.”

Since 1993, when his famous block-lettered signature began appearing on walls and trains around Bristol, Banksy, himself, has invaded everywhere. From a Paris Hilton CD to the famous Louvre Museum in Paris and on to Disneyland, where he placed a blow-up doll decked out in a GitMo Bay prisoner uniform at the foot of Thunder Mountain. At the Louvre – and just about at every other famous museum in the world – he was able to hang his own work among the collection.

“I hang my own paintings up in galleries, because I can’t afford to wait until they do it themselves,” Banksy says. “The art world is the biggest joke going.”

Banksy’s partner, Steve Lazarides, who operates the gallery through which Banksy’s paintings are sold, says, “it wasn’t open to us, so we just decided to open up a different branch of art.”

Call it Infiltration Art, and after years spent in the trenches (read: on walls) it’s now fetching extraordinary amounts of dough, Banksy’s highest sale topping out at $575,000 at a recent auction. A representative from Sotheby’s calls Banksy “the quickest-growing artist anyone has seen of all time.”

Is Banksy psyched or what? After his biggest cash coup to date, he posted this message on his website: “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit.”

Analyzing whether Banksy’s work is actual shit, or not (some of it is, some of it isn’t), is a job for the art critics. But his bold statement would suggest that the once nameless spray painter isn’t exactly having the easiest go of dealing with the fame. He admits: “the money that my work fetches these days makes me a bit uncomfortable.”

Irony of ironies: the artist who lives to make people uncomfortable is now uncomfortable himself.

Adding more unease to his plight, a slew of celebrities have jumped on his bandwagon: Keanu, Jude Law, Macaulay Culkin, Christina Aguilera, Everlast, Joni Mitchell and the Royal Couple themselves, Bradgelina. Needless to say, Banksy isn’t too hot on the attention: “Brad Pitt told a journalist ‘I think it’s really cool no one knows who he is’ and within a week there were journalists from the Daily Mail at the door of my dealer’s dad’s chip shop asking if he knew where they could find me. All the attention meant I lost some of the element of surprise.”

Pitt’s exact quote: “He does all this and stays anonymous. I think that’s great. These days everyone is trying to be famous. But he has anonymity.”

Now that his anonymity is being chipped away (thanks, Brad!) and his pockets are well lined with green, will it change Banksy? Or will he rise to the challenge and retain his classic outsider pose?

His usual anti-authoritarian themes reflect big issues, from the senselessness of war to world poverty. He even throws some animal, and gay, rights into his act (witness his graffiti bombing at zoos, and check out his “two policemen kissing.”) Banksy admits he “originally set out to try and save the world. But now I am not so sure I like it enough.”

And maybe that’s the job of a father: go out into the world with idealism, hatch babies, then grow cynical and decide you’d rather take care of yourself than save the world; leave the kids to have a go at that whole idealism shit.

Banksy’s kids are numerous. And they’re armed.

“All these lads look at Banksy the way the youngsters who are into football look at Beckham – he’s their hero,” says Denise James, the director of Bristol Clean and Green.

Bristol, known as the graffiti capital of the U.K, spends more than $300,000 a year to clean up the city. “It annoys and frustrates me, because it’s just so ugly,” says James.

“Imagine a city where graffiti wasn’t illegal, a city where everybody could draw wherever they liked,” Banksy once wrote. “Where the street was awash with a million colors and little phrases.”

It’s called Los Angeles, and one cruise along the dirty boulevards and freeways will give you a hint that the city Banksy dreams of might not be as utopian as he believes.

And, while we’re on the subject: What happens when an anarchist’s dream comes true? Does chaos eventually morph into another form of order? For better or worse? Is Banksy thinking about the repercussions? Or is he just following the muse? But I digress.

Banksy has been to L.A. He’s g-bombed the crap out of it. He went all commando at Venice Beach, and of course snuck into Disneyland and left his Git-Mo prisoner (which you can see on youtube). But the biggest wave he made was at his second official art show – that he of course didn’t attend. Held last September, it was called Barely Legal and, in addition to selling his stenciled work, Banksy tried to draw attention to world poverty by placing a real-live elephant in the room. It was painted in the design of the wall décor and it drew a firestorm of ire from animal rights activists. But also a lot of press for Banksy.

The dude was blowing up. How high? While setting up for the show, Banksy ate a pizza. Someone managed to retrieve the box from the dumpster and sell it on e-Bay for $102.00.

But that pizza box is about as close as Banksy’s fans are ever going to get to him. “I have no interest in ever coming out,” he says. “I figure there are enough self-opinionated assholes trying to get their ugly little faces in front of you as it is.”

Banksy would rather hang with the rats. So what’s that saying about us?

For more, check out his site: his site.