Ben Eine Quotes
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All too often, when people think about art in the U.K., they think London. There's some really great work being produced outside of the capital city and I think it is important to stop and acknowledge that.
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Whenever I get a job that's somewhere around America, I fly over my ex-wife and daughter and hang out with them.
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Street art belongs on the street. But I'm a working street artist and I earn my money selling art in the style of street art via galleries.
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A lot of my paintings have quite negative meanings, but painted in a bright and cheerful way.
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I don't get paid for what I do in public places. So I invest the money I earn in galleries back into doing the stuff I passionately want to do on the street.
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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.
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Old typography or letter woodblocks that are hand-carved, cracked, and worn are especially beautiful. I love that aged, handmade effect, and that's why I don't muck around much with Photoshop.
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I used to run away from the cops and now I stand and chat with them about my art. I'm older now and it is harder to run away from them. It would be embarrassing for an older man to get arrested by someone half your age. So I gave up running.
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I love the process of cutting everything out with a scalpel yourself: I don't want to have my stencils drawn up in Illustrator, then laser-cut. I like the fact that it's slightly wrong; I think it gives it a beauty. The individual and handmade will always be worth more than what a computer can do, at least until computers can learn how to make mistakes.
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I'm a long way from being a Damien Hirst.
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Street art, unlike graffiti, adds to the environment and is a positive experience for the artist and community.
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Spraypainting a shop shutter turns an ugly, boring thing into something interesting and colourful. I think you'd have to be a pretty negative person to find fault in it.
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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.
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Most people think I do street art, so I do everything for nothing. I'm an urchin who paints walls and does work for nothing. That's the first misconception about street artists, that we just paint for nothing.
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I have never voted in any election - I usually have more important things to do, especially since I've had kids.
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I don't want to sell to street art collectors, I want to sell to art collectors.
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Banksy's a very selfish, driven, paranoid artist. For good reasons.
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I'm always travelling and spend a lot of time in airports so I know what it feels like to get a personal welcome home. I wish I got more of them.
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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.
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The Prime Minister gave President Obama one of my artworks and suddenly my name was all over the news.
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I painted the words "GREAT ADVENTURE" in Beijing, Dallas, San Francisco, Copenhagen, and Japan. What it means to me is completely different to everybody else. And that's what I love about random words and phrases taken out of context: everyone applies their own context. If you want to apply something political or meaningful to a word I wrote on the side of the wall, then it's up to you.
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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.
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One of the advantages of not going to art school is that you're not taught what you can't do.
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I've a lot of respect for what people are doing here in Manchester, to promote the city's creativity and Aviva Investors Manchester Art Fair has played a big role in that. I'm glad to bring my work to the North West.