Ben Eine, until relatively recently the best kept secret in UK urban art has hit the headlines when British PM Dave Cameron and President Barack Obama recently performed an art trade on Dave's first official visit as Prime Minister to the USA. What I didn't know until even more recently is that the guy is literally based down the road from me in Hastings. I had an inkling he had links down this way when Chris, my gf, pointed out some signage at her local jewellers in Kings Road St. Leonards on Sea.
Anyway, it only seems right I give the guy a big shout out seeing as he's about the biggest local name I'll probably ever drop in my life. Eine is famed for his typographic stencil art such as his series of shop shutter works and vast murals including titles like Vandalism and Scary. Here's what Wikipedia have to say on the guy:
Prior to becoming involved in commercial graffiti, Eine was a very famous and highly credible writer in the underground London graffiti scene.
Inspired by the work of fashion assassin Noki, Eine first started to explore more commercial avenues in a workshop above the Dragon Bar in Lenoard Street, London (now knocked down). Eine produced a number of custom clothing designs notably some custom "VANDALS" sweatshirts and started to explore screen prints.
At this time Eine contributed to sticker graffiti and was prolific in East London with his neon and black EINE stickers (multiple EINE names).
Eine first came to prominence in the "commercial" graffiti scene through his symbiotic partnership with London graffiti artist Banksy; through Eine, Banksy was able to access the underground scene and through Banksy Eine accessed the commercial world. Impressed by the work of Banksy Eine chose to focus on "commercial" graffiti.
In his commercial work he has produced numerous lettering styles including: shutter, circus, neon, elton, vandalism and wendy.
Of course there's much more to Eine's work than typographic stencils, I love his Cork Street Monsters canvases…
