Ben Eine (real name Ben Flynn; born 23 August 1970) is a prolific street artist based in London, England. Eine is most notable for his alphabet lettering on shop shutters in London’s Shoreditch, Brick Lane and Broadway Market areas. Some of these letters have been mapped for ease of finding. He has also taken his lettering to the streets of Dublin, L.A., Mexico City, Miami, Paris, San Francisco, Stockholm en Tokyo.
Prior to becoming involved in commercial graffiti, Ben Eine was a very famous and highly credible writer in the underground London graffiti scene. His unusual ‘throw up’ was created to stand out from the usual tags and dubs seen on the streets and can still be found in some dingy areas of East London.
Inspired by the work of fashion assassin Noki, Ben Eine first started to explore more commercial avenues in a workshop above the Dragon Bar in Leonard Street, London (since demolished). Eine produced a number of custom clothing designs notably some custom “VANDALS” sweatshirts and started to explore screen prints eventually working as a screen printer for cult screen print company Pictures On Walls. Ben Eine produced many of the hand pulled prints for artists represented by POW including Banksy, Jamie Hewlett, Mode2, Modern Toss and David Shrigley. His natural talent for colour combinations meant that he was able to enhance the work supplied by the artists. He left this position to pursue his own solo career in 2008.
At this time Ben Eine contributed to sticker graffiti and was prolific in East London with his neon and black Eine stickers (multiple Eine names).
He first came to prominence in the “commercial” graffiti scene through his symbiotic partnership with London graffiti artist Banksy; through Ben Eine, Banksy was able to access the underground scene and through Banksy Eine accessed the commercial world.
Ben Eine shot to international fame when David Cameron presented one of his works to President Obama as a gift on his first official state visit, but is arguably more famous for ‘Alphabet Street’ – the shutters and murals he painted in his trademark colours and typography in Middlesex Street, London – described by The Times as ”a street now internationally recognized as a living piece of art with direct links to The White House”
