Ben Eine Quotes

I grew up around New York, graffiti culture.

I started off as a graffiti artist in the South Bronx. My tag name was 'Loco' because I would go crazy and tag anywhere I wanted, in the weirdest places.

I have a company that does design and animation, so obviously graffiti is definitely an intricate part of what we admire and respect in the art world.

My graffiti really comes more from a May '68, sort of Situationist vibe than the hip-hop world. I think a real graffiti artist would find me a poser.

Graffiti has an interesting relationship to the broader world of hip-hop: It's part of the culture, but also in a weird way a stepchild of the culture.

I didn't start doing graffiti until two years after I got to New York. Jean Michel Basquiat was one of my main inspirations for doing graffiti. For a year I didn't know who Jean Michel was, but I knew his work.

The trains were the beating heart of the New York graffiti scene.

People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish... but that's only if it's done properly.

Graffiti is linear and it's done with a pencil, and it's like writing on walls. But in my paintings it's more lyrical.

I have always been a Peter Blake fan and love street art and graffiti. I really like this street-art collective called Faile. They're from Brooklyn and make these prints of beautiful women.

I'm a painter. I was a graffiti artist, and I painted all over the world.

I wasn't trying to turn graffiti into an art form. I just wanted to learn about art. I wanted to learn this game.

As soon as street art got popular, I was just like, 'I'm out of here.'

I actually got into music because of art and because of skateboarding: All those graphics and punk bands and fanzines - they were glued together in my brain.

The type of work I do, which is often called 'Pop Surrealism,' is very separate from Gagosian and Mary Boone type of gallery art.

The best art is on the street.

Street artists want to add something to the environment. They consider the audience, whereas graffiti writers don't care about anyone except themselves, they do it purely for the kick.

I've realised that there's art in everything we do in London. Suddenly, a photo of two boys sitting on a wall in tracksuits with a dog can go online and be considered a sick photo. That's what we've done to London.

I'm a Banksy fan. I'm also a fan of Chris Hobe, Mister Totem, Drew Wootten, Mad Clout, Hense and Sever, in visual and street art. And Jonathan Mannion and Shane Nash in photography.

When I first got into graffiti I thought it was going to change the world. But when, 20-years-later, it still hadn't, I got bored of the self-imposed rules.

I was looking at the work of the New York street artists and then discovering Basquiat and Haring after that and seeing how the contemporary art scene was, and then going back into Warhol and all that was happening in the 60s.

I was brought up in south London and I started out in the world of graffiti when I was about 14 because I wanted to be part of that hooded tracksuit gang thing.

I'm hoping that Abu Dhabi's first piece of street art will inspire the next generation of artists the same way that the discovery of subway art inspired me all those years ago.

A friend of mine back in 1989 did an illegal rave in Vauxhall. He got Keith Haring to come along and tag the side of the wall. My friend cut it out of the wall and he kept it under his bed for 20 years. Then a few years ago he asks me if I want to buy it... so I spent £12,000 on a Keith Haring.

For me, it's mostly about having stuff on the street. You're walking down the street, you do it every day, and suddenly there's something that wasn't there yesterday: something bright and cheerful and different. It might stay there for a year; maybe it will disappear.