Born in 1942, Eddie Banks first became interested in art at secondary school and in 1956, he succeeded in having two oil paintings selected as exhibits at the Schoolchildren’s Czechoslovakia - Great Britain Art Exhibition, held in London and Prague.  At age fifteen (in 1957), he started work as a draughtsman for a tile company while continuing with general art studies.   His focus shifted to textile design and architecture when he studied at the Stoke-on-Trent College of Art before transitioning into a career as a commercial artist in advertising.

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Eddie then joined the Army in 1961 and trained as an architectural draughtsman, later being posted to Borneo for a year as part of a Military Clerk of Works team. Rising through the ranks from Sapper (Private) to Major, he eventually retired from the military in search of new challenges. For nearly three decades, his artistic pursuits took a backseat until he found solace in art whilst engaged in Mine and UXO clearance work in Kuwait, Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Iran. Whilst working in Iran, Eddie participated in a two-person art exhibition focusing on flowers in Tehran alongside his friend, Hooman Derakhshandeh, an Iranian artist who painted the piece below.    

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Upon retiring to Scotland in 2005, Eddie constructed a studio at the bottom of his garden to immerse himself further in his artwork. Over the subsequent years, he produced several commissioned paintings and pieces of art, exhibiting numerous paintings around Edinburgh.

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More recently, he has been involved with art management as well as painting a few small parts of the Colinton Tunnel Mural, a 147-meter mural by the Scottish Muralist Chris Rutterford. In 2022, he completed a colouring book based on tunnel murals with colleague Mike Scott.  In addition to this, he has been exhibiting at the Pentland Art Club’s yearly exhibition for many years. Nowadays he works under the artistic name of BanksE.

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Alongside his endeavours in art, he has written several books, including one on military history and a technical volume on Anti-Personnel Landmines. Additionally, he has produced numerous studies and papers on landmines and their operations during the eighties and nineties. 

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Outside of his artistic pursuits, he is an avid walker, gardener, and traveller, having now worked in or visited more than sixty-five countries throughout his life.