Well then: the mysterious hooded and bearded man photographed supervising the painting of a new Banksy mural yesterday is not Banksy; it's Williamsburg artist R. Nicholas Kuszyk! As he informed us just now in an email with the intriguing subject line: "not banksy! it's kuszyk." Who is this be-aviator shaded man of mystery? A Banksy collaborator who also paints some nice robots himself! See here:

the photo of the hooded person is not banksy. it's me, r nicholas kuszyk, a williamsburg brooklyn based artist informally affiliated w banksy and colossal media. i was consulting the paint crew on behalf of banksy who was too busy to oversee the entire process. this might sound like shameless self promoton (the name of the game) but at least i had the foresight, well banksy and i had the foresight, to plan on wearing something that covered my face yesterday in the case of people like david noseypants photog acting all paparazzi. otherwise this ordeal would have made my face public property. a dozen people took my photograph yesterday. david was the most intrusive. well played sir.

Here's his website, and here's a sample of his art, which is wild and crazy in a good way I believe: