Zippo and Ben Eine, the world-acclaimed typography street artist, have unveiled a massive 188,368 square foot mural of the word “CREATE” – to celebrate the release of a limited-edition windproof lighter. The mural is located on the ground of an industrial compound in East London, where for over two and a half weeks a team of 30 volunteers and six artists painted. The team used 752 gallons of recycled paint mixed into a 52 gallon bathtub and laid out with 18-inch wide rollers. The end result was “An Unconventional Canvas”, one of the world’s largest ground canvas.
Ben Eine, known in the art world simply as ‘Eine’ is a master of messages. Famed for painting large colorful letters and phrases onto city streets across the globe, Eine has earned his reputation. His mural ‘Scary,’ created 10 years ago, can still be found on East London’s Rivington Street. In 2010, he gained widespread recognition when Prime Minister David Cameron gifted one of his paintings to President Barack Obama. Eine is also respected for his street-art commentary; he was featured in the documentary “Saving Banksy” alongside other icons such as Risk, Blek Le Rat, and Anthony Lister.
Eine’s work is showcased in prominent galleries across the world, and he receives commissions from prominent figures, among them the Sheik of Abu Dhabi.
Eine collaborates with a small selection of brands including Virgin Airlines, The Body Shop, and now Zippo. We had a chance to connect with the artist and ask him a few questions about his work, the Zippo project and creating one of the world’s largest murals on the ground.
RM: Do you feel deeply connected to typography?
EINE: Certainly, graffiti in its essence is exploring the letterform and playing with typography.
RM: Do you attribute your lettering technique to starting out as a graffiti artist?
EINE: My technique comes from graffiti in the streets and on trains. I wanted to be different from other artists and paint with a more classic and contemporary style to separate myself from the rest. My work progressed from unreadable letters that only other graffiti artists would recognize, to something more accessible to people in all walks of life.
As time went on, I gained a lot more recognition as a street artist and a lot more commissions started to pour in! I was then able to start to incorporate the use of stencils as I had a lot more time available, allowing me to make the pieces cleaner and sharper.
RM: Have you ever been approached to paint a mural without alphabetic lettering? If so, did you/would you do it?
EINE: I was approached about 7 years ago by The Guardian and they were doing a series of modern royal portraits. They approached me and my initial idea was to write Prince Charles or something but I ended up doing a portrait of Prince Charles in Hastings.
Although typography, words and letters is what I’m known for, I enjoy playing around and doing other stuff.
RM: In the video footage, it seems that you guys got off to a bumpy start, was there ever a moment that you thought the mural just wasn’t going to come to life the way you wanted? Or planned?
EINE: The process was full of ups and downs but I was confident and excited to tackle the project. The size and scale of the art was a huge challenge within itself but also finding the right location, securing and clearing it, was quite a feat.
RM: Along with painting a massive ground canvas, (188,368 sq. ft, your back must of been killing you!) was this the first time you’ve ever had to review a mural’s progress using only drone footage? How difficult was it?
EINE: This was my most challenging piece to date. Not being able to stand back and see how the piece was developing was something very difficult for me. At the end of each day, we would fly a drone up in the air, capture footage, and come back the next morning to paint over it. Overall, it was a huge leap of faith.
RM: Do you think only using a drone to review your artwork could enhance a street-artists ability to create?
EINE: I think cameras and technology over all can make what we’re doing at the moment…. make what we paint, a lot more interesting.
RM: For everyone reading this, dealing with winter weather and bitter-cold winds, how legit are those windproof zippo lighters?
EINE: Zippo’s windproof lighters are definitely durable, and the design of it allows the flame to be protected even in wintery conditions and cold winds.
RM: To shift subjects a bit, at this years’ Art Basel Miami we attended an artist panel in Wynwood. The topic of “selling out” came up. Is this even a relevant term in the highly competitive world of street-art?
EINE: 50 Cent said it best when it comes to this topic – “When you walk into HMV and can’t buy my record, that’s what selling out is.” We’re not little kids anymore, this is my job and has been for the last 20 years.
RM: Do you feel that mural art and the urban art scene is dominated by a male roster of talent? Are there any female street-artists you admire or are a fan of?
EINE: There are a lot of female artists like Maya Hayuk and Olek, that are amazing and do something completely different however, it is a completely male dominated industry.
From my perspective, what I do has its roots in graffiti. We were jumping over fences, painting on trains, running away from the police, and that’s just a little more male dominated.
RM: New developments and gentrification are rapidly reaching an all time high, do you believe this drives more public art to an area or prevents it?
EINE: About 25 years ago, we went into the poorest neighborhoods in London, they couldn’t afford to clean up graffiti and no one wanted to live there. As artists, we wanted to paint where we could see it and that slowly evolved into London’s Street art scene. Fast forward to today and I can’t even afford to live there.
RM: Anything new you’re working on? Solo show? Mural Projects?
EINE: I have a bunch of different projects coming up in Los Angeles, Florence, Moscow, Fuji Rocks festival in Japan and it’s only the beginning of February.
We look forward to seeing it all, thank you!
Ben Eine: instagram
