Revolution - Peach

Ben Eine started his career when graffiti was locked down upon, he remembers this period "street art didn't exist. It was a completely different world. Certainly when you compare it to now when Shoreditch is completely covered in colour. Back then, if you were stood in the street with a can of spray paint, spraying something, it was automatically assumed that you were graffitiing and people would phone the police.

A lot of the first shutters that I painted, most of which were commissioned, I'd have to avoid any trouble by filling them in with paint and a paintbrush first and then just break the spray paint out for the final outline.

One shutter I was painting in the street, which I'd had permission to paint, this guy comes up to me and takes a picture of my face saying, "Right! I'm sending this to the police, you're going to get arrested!" People didn't like spray paint back then. Today, that's all changed and you can do pretty much anything you want in East London and no one is going to say a word."