Written by Skye Slatcher
I used to think graffiti was an eyesore, making otherwise pleasant streets and buildings look uncared for. Certainly, many people take that view, arguing that it’s ugly and should be eliminated. Thankfully, I have become way cooler and more cultured and now I think graffiti is great! I’ve spent a while learning about the UK scene and it’s true that London would be pretty bland without its spray paint decorations.
Graffiti and street art aren’t the same thing. Certainly there is overlap, and the terms are often used interchangeably, but for the best accuracy, we should understand the difference. Graffiti is typically unauthorised: tags, throw-ups, pieces. Street art is a much broader category and often (though not always) permitted. The murals you see on the side of shops would certainly not be described as graffiti.
It’s worth understanding how exactly modern graffiti culture came to be.
In the late 60s and early 70s, graffiti arrived in London as tagging culture. Imported from the US, artists marked territory with stylised signatures in generally hard-to-reach places. Right from the start, the competitive spirit of the culture was central. Tagging a tall building by rappelling down the side or getting into a dangerous derelict building earnt taggers credibility.
By the 80s, London’s hip-hop scene had exploded. Graffiti was inseparable from that. But at this stage, it was very much underground and illegal. There was little nuance in public discussion: it was vandalism.
The 90s and early 2000s are often considered the golden age. Blek le Rat (a French pioneer of stencil art) and Banksy (influenced by Blek and 3D) generated global attention for the culture. In London, Shoreditch was more clearly established as a hub of graffiti and street art, with its low rents, empty warehouses, and industrial decay making it the ideal canvas. (Low rents? Certainly not 2026 Shoreditch.) The scene was expanding into new forms, with stencils, paste-ups, and politically charged images replacing pure tagging. This is when the graffiti vs street art distinction becomes clear.
The early-mid 2000s were years of crackdowns. The British Transport Police and local councils launched more coordinated anti-graffiti campaigns. Fines and prison time deterred many artists, with some leaving the illegal work behind and moving towards commissioned and gallery pieces. These are the foundations of the commercialisation debate that still rages today.
2008 proved to be a pivotal year with Banksy organising the Cans Festival in the Leake Street tunnel under Waterloo Station. The tunnel remains a legal graffiti space to this day. Artists from around the world are invited and it becomes a landmark event, legitimising the culture.
Through the 2010s, street art became a cultural asset. Galleries dedicated to the form were established across the city, and the London Mural Festival launched. Shoreditch cemented its global reputation, but as money flooded in, artists found themselves being priced out. That meant that a lot of the new work was commercially arranged rather than spontaneous, and also brought up a tension between authenticity to the culture and the commercialisation of the space.
Now, the scene has spread well beyond East London into, for example, Brixton, Camden, and Peckham. London attracts artists from around the world — partly because of the whole Banksy thing, and partly because of the sheer volume of footfall. The work here ends up being seen globally.
LONDON RIGHT NOW:
Right now, one of London’s most prolific graffiti artists is 10Foot. He is, as his name would suggest, very tall (apparently around 7 feet tall). Famously, he refuses to pay for any paint. Some have estimated that given the rate at which he gets up he would use £80 to £150 of spray paint cans in one night. That’s a lot. The Instagram account @10foot_everywhere is a fan page, posting his tags and throw ups spotted everywhere, including in the background of porn and video games. He is a true fixture of the global graffiti scene, having put tags around the world — but nowhere more than London. You can even see his work in the opening credits of Top Boy. Next time you walk past or under a bridge, have a look at the side of it — chances are it says ‘1 0 F O O T’.
One Reddit thread in r/london simply asked the question ‘So, who is 10Foot?’. Two Reddit users took to the comments to express their disdain towards his graffiti. I’d be interested to know if they’d describe the likes of Banksy as ‘a grown man ruining things’.
His tags are often found next to someone called Flash. Presumably, they are friends, but admittedly I know almost nothing about Flash.
Invader is a French artist who has been placing mosaic tile artworks (based on the classic Space Invaders arcade game) on city walls since the late 1990s. He has left 193 pieces across London in 21 successive “invasion waves.” His work is about surveillance culture, placing his own watchers on the walls of a watched city.
Florist is another mosaic artist filling up walls across London. He features flowers in all of his work. In the tunnel next to Shoreditch High Street station, you can find his version of the ‘Jaws’ poster, which features a little flower on top of the ocean, rather than a swimmer. Around Autumn 2025, he moved away from anonymity, releasing some videos speaking directly to the camera. In December, the police raided his and his mother’s homes — a reminder this is still technically illegal.
Sweettoof is one of London’s most distinctive and deeply rooted figures. He began tagging at age 13 and went on to graduate with a master’s degree from the Royal Academy of Arts. this trajectory sort ofencapsulates the scene’s own journey from illegal underground activity to institutional recognition. His signature motif — iconic teeth in bright pink gums — has become one of the most recognisable marks across Brick Lane, Hackney Wick, and beyond. He is a good example of an artist who has never abandoned his street roots while also building a serious studio and gallery practice: the tension between those two worlds is part of what makes him so unique.
Stik is a pretty minimalist artist and has created some of the largest public artworks in London and NYC. In 2020, Hackney Council unveiled his sculpture ‘Holding Hands’, which is now a permanent fixture of Hoxton Square, where he began his art journey. He, true to his name, paints stick figure-like people, in a simplistic style. He too has managed to balance the authorised and unauthorised sides of his work as he has grown in renown.
Banksy is easily the most famous and most debated figure. Bristol-based but deeply associated with London, his stencil work, combining dark humour with political commentary, redefined what street art could be. After his rise, councils and property owners began protecting his murals rather than painting over them: a seismic shift in how the city treats street art. His work sells for millions at auction. Not all of them though — we need only walk around the corner to the back of the Royal Courts of Justice to see the attempts to hide one of his latest pieces.
The debate remains as to whether graffiti counts as art. Or whether it still counts as street art if it is commissioned by a brand. What is certainly true, though, is that the fact that work that could be painted over in hours is not a flaw, but a feature. Although that is at odds with the scene’s growing status as a tourist attraction, that ephemerality and temporariness is central. And I love it.
Everything is temporary 😉
