A quiet English village green, neatly mown grass, a group of elderly people dressed in white, a classic scene of lawn bowls. But look closer, and the ball the players are holding is actually a bomb.

This 2003 screenprint by Banksy, called Bombing Middle England, exposes the violence hidden beneath one of Britain’s calmest, most ordinary images.

The piece appeared in 2003, at the time the Iraq War began. Banksy’s intent is quite clear. He is suggesting that war, bombs and violence are not only things that happen in distant places, and that the comfort and silence of “middle England” indirectly support that same violence.

This piece was not designed as a street mural. It was produced as a screenprint, and it has been circulating in the collector’s market ever since.

The power of the image comes exactly from this contrast. Lawn bowls is a symbol of the English countryside, of old age, of a life where nothing ever seems to change.

This work can be seen as part of a larger body of Banksy’s anti war and anti imperialist pieces.