Ebor Street — Ben Eine's Monumental Typography

Ebor Street in London features a 45-metre mural wall continuously repainted with monumental typography by street artist Ben Eine, whose work was famously gifted to President Barack Obama. Born Ben Flynn in 1970, Eine began painting graffiti in 1984 before co-founding Pictures On Walls with Banksy. The Ebor Street wall, owned by advertising agency Mother, has displayed multi-font messages including Peace Is Possible in 2018 and Love Love Love in 2019.

London · from the walk “Walls That Talk: Shoreditch Street Art & Urban Creativity” · Generated

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Ebor Street, London E1 6AW

Which Ben Eine painting was gifted to President Barack Obama by Prime Minister David Cameron in July 2010?

Look at this wall. Forty-five metres of Blazing colour... enormous letters spelling out a message so personal it almost feels like you're reading someone's diary, scrawled across the side of a building. This is Ebor Street, and this is the work of Ben Eine... one of the most important street artists London has ever produced.

Born Ben Flynn on the twenty-third of August, nineteen seventy, right here in London, Eine didn't start with galleries and commissions. In nineteen eighty-four, at just fourteen years old, he began painting on the trains and walls of his city. He was a vandal. A proper graffiti writer, tagging every surface he could find under cover of darkness. By his own admission, he was "quite a ferocious vandal" who got arrested quite a few times. The last time, he received a seven thousand pound fine and around a hundred and eighty hours of community service... and he knew the next arrest would mean prison.

So he pivoted. And here's where it gets interesting. In a workshop above the Dragon Bar on Leonard Street, not far from here, Eine began exploring new directions. He co-founded the cult screen print company Pictures On Walls with Banksy, and became the man Behind some of the most famous prints in street art history. Eine's accomplished screen printing skills produced works by Banksy and Faile... before he stepped out as a solo artist in two thousand eight.

Then came the phone call that changed everything. Eine said he was "shocked" when he received a call from Number Ten. A Downing Street official claimed the Prime Minister was a fan of his work. In July twenty ten, David Cameron gifted Eine's painting, "Twenty First Century City," to President Barack Obama during his first official visit to Washington! The selection was influenced by Cameron's wife, Samantha, who favoured Eine's typography-focused style. Eine has heard that when the Obamas left the White House, they took the painting with them... and it now hangs in one of his daughters' bedrooms.

Now look around you again. It's been over a decade since Eine first revealed his renowned Circus font on this very wall belonging to ad agency Mother, with the words "Pro Pro Pro." Since then, this forty-five metre canvas has been repainted again and again. "Peace Is Possible" appeared in twenty eighteen, conceived in response to London's knife crime epidemic. Then twenty hours of painting later, "Love Love Love" arrived for summer twenty nineteen, in three different Eine fonts. Each message a reflection of the moment.

And what does the current mural say? "I Don't Want To Be Like This Anymore." A phrase that could mean anything... and everything. That's the genius of Eine. He paints Letters, not pictures. He forces you to read, to think, to find your own meaning in these enormous, circus-bright words. He is regarded as a pioneer in the exploration of contemporary typography art, and in twenty eighteen he unveiled the Largest street artwork in the world... a seventeen thousand five hundred square foot mural in East London that is visible from Space.

From teenage vandal on London trains... to the White House... to this wall right here on Ebor Street. Not a bad journey for a kid from East London with a spray can and a dream.

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