Ben Eine Quotes

Melbourne, where I grew up, is one of the street art capitals of the world. Something about discovering freshly painted walls always fills me with optimism; it's autonomous and democratic, and reminds me that maybe people are paying attention after all.

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.

After pop art, graffiti is probably the biggest art movement in recent history to have such an impact on culture.

When you walk down the street and see something in a crazy spot, there's something powerful about that. The street will always be an important part of getting art out there for me.

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

In 2009, I began creating 'Waterworks' with the new vernacular coming from the 'Signs of Life' work in Las Vegas.

I've never really considered myself just a street artist. I consider myself a populist.

That's the test of street art - to see if anybody stopped. People would cross out ones they didn't like and would star others. I liked that people would engage with them.

I consider myself a multi-platform artist - not just a street artist - but the audience I found through street art has created many of the opportunities I now have on other platforms.

The best art is on the street.

My work isn't overtly political, although it is sometimes painted in places where I don't have permission to paint, so that could be construed as a political statement.

When I got into graffiti, it was the most-exciting art form and it changed the course of my life.

Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums.

I don't have this obsessive need to do street art all the time because it's already opened doors for me.

Street artists need to get back to actually doing things on the streets instead of in the galleries where they all seem to be ending up. I hope this term 'street artist' falls from the face of the earth, in my honest opinion.

I love graffiti because it enables kids from every social extraction to do something that brings them closer to art, when they normally wouldn't be stimulated to be visually creative. Graffiti helps to develop an awareness of immediate expressive and uncontrolled freedom.

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.

For the general public, my work is sometimes easier than a painting because there is someone addressing you; it can actually be a relief. What's interesting is the idea of a tourist randomly coming in and the experience they'll have.

I believe in the democratization of the arts. What do I mean by that? I think museums, with some exceptions, have a responsibility to educate a much broader public.

The city's the best gallery I could imagine. I would never have to make a book and then present it to a gallery and let them decide if my work was nice enough to show it to people. I would control it directly with the public in the streets.

Graffiti is linear, and it's done with a pencil, and it's like writing on walls.

The thing with sculpture is, 90% of the time, when I pass a piece of sculpture, it's in public or somewhere, and it's just, how inconvenient that that's there. It takes up so much room, and it's so oppressive.

I like the idea that you can paint something outdoors, and anyone can see it. It's open to anyone, and people have to deal with it. In the gallery, it's the same 150 people on the San Francisco art scene. There's a dynamic on the street that's definitely more interesting.

I want people to get inspired by public space - their space. People tend to forget about it because they do the daily thing, but putting up these sculptures breaks the routine.

The parts of graffiti I like are really antagonizing still - it's not something that a museum would really embrace.