EINE Scary Monsters

It’s back! Eine’s SCARY on Rivington Street, familiar to many many Shoreditch Street Art tour guests as the penultimate piece of art on the tour has been restored to its original colour scheme.


EINE SCARY 2021 Repaint


Painted in 2007, back in the days when if a street artist wanted a wall they had to damn well sort it out themselves, SCARY is London’s oldest street art mural (terms and conditions apply).


EINE SCARY Nights 2012


This SCARY was a partner to the VANDALISM mural on the corresponding wall on the next street, making the ironic statement “SCARY VANDALISM” in the year when EINE really came of age as a sought after street artist with his first solo show. Notice in 2007, no Citizen M, no elevated East London Line and no boutique next door to Village Underground!


EINE VANDALISM 2007


In 2019, Eine updated the mural as a charity art piece dedicated to Movember to raise funds in support of men’s mental health. The background was painted yellow and 60 stylised handlebar moustaches were added. 60 because the message on the wall was “Globally, 60 men die by suicide every hour” and moustaches because men raise sponsorship money for Movember by stopping shaving throughout November. Eine back up the awareness raising by releasing 100 copies of a signed limited edition screenprint sold for £100 each, proceeds going to Movember.


EINE SCARY 2019 Movember colour scheme


The plan always was that it would eventually be returned to the original background and this week, Eine finally got around to restoring SCARY’s classic screaming redness.

All photos Dave Stuart

Nature Is A Whore Street Art

“It was 30 years ago today” that Nirvana released Nevermind, with apologies for that inept abuse of the Beatles’ lyrical mastery and the actual facts (release date Sep 24th 1991). One of the standout tracks on a standout album is “In Bloom”, Kurt Cobain’s lament on the impact of their growing success and within the song is the line “Nature Is A Whore”. Nature Is A Whore is the tagline anointing some but not all of a collection of naïve and economical artworks appearing around London over the past few months.




The smile is often innocent, almost angelic and frequently the curiously four fingered character offers flowers or seems to relish the beauty in a fresh cut flower. The crossed arms styling is curious as well, is this a dance move or a gangster style vogue?




You have got to chuckle when the buff inadvertently facilitates a tinted homage to the original.







Painting large scale on a couple of currently un-utilised advert walls, the artist is proposing that they are not racist as they have a coloured TV, which at face value looks like a joke available in black and white version but could easily be a very clever statement of a race blind preference for transvestites.







Street art produces a never dry fountain of inspiration, the themes are diverse, the motives varied, the creators are legion and even in a few cases legendary. Sometimes, the artist impulse comes from an anonymous mind whose satisfaction would appear to derive from beautification rather than ego gratification. Thus far, I have no firm idea who these short lived minimalist masterpieces should be attributed to. I am equally curious about the perpetually crossed arms stance.




Here is a sample of just a few, guests have report their own sightings of other specimens in other locations.










All photos: Dave Stuart