Tribute to London Graffiti Pioneers

In this painting I have gone back to the gritty roots of UK graffiti, to show where it all started, tags, throw-ups and early pieces on London trains.

The images from New York in the book Subway Art and the film Style Wars had radicalised fertile minds in 1984 where it incubated, mutated and developed through important years of early bombing. By 1986 London writers had become numerous and dedicated enough that most trains were running with live graffiti on them and confident enough to concoct identities and assimilate styles more independently of New York influence, by now using our own indigenous cultural references and attitudes.

This is when our scene really began in earnest as a uniquely London phenomenon rolling on the oldest underground railway in the world. Pieces got bigger more beautiful and more original, raising the bar higher and higher.

This painting is not meant to be a complete list of London’s graffiti pioneers but features many of London’s legends. I’ve painted it from my own personal memories with input from my pal Envy, one of my old bombing partners, and from my experiences of the yards (particularly Loughton) between 1987 and 1989.

Anyone who spent any time in the yards of London in the late eighties will instantly recognise the vintage rolling stock, layers of stains of old tags on the panels, empty cans on the gravel, and spookily quiet atmosphere in this painting.

It’s based on Loughton train yard. Check out the leaves around the outside and the trees to the left, it could be accessed through bushes and this was one of my favourite views of the fronts of the rolling stock as emerging.

I have put people’s tags and throw-ups in the places I remember them hitting wherever possible. I realise there are discrepancies that purists will notice, (I have included certain writers who didn’t actually hit that yard) but it’s not meant to be historically accurate more a ‘dream-yard’.

Featured writers are Robbo 484, Doze, Prime and PIC from WRH We Roc Hard crew. Envy, Jano, Kis 42, Coma and Dsia from CD Criminal Damage, Elk and Drax from WD World Domination, Cast and Fuel (who kindly did his own F throw-up on the canvas) from Cold Crush Dukes, Chane and Grand from YDS Yardies, Tilt, Hit, Rate, Kez, Sham 59, Cop and myself, Elate.

If you look carefully at the ‘stainers’ of old tags you may be able to pick out a few others. …there are many more legends that are missing than there are included!! Massive respect to all…

Many of these writers were either better artists than me back then or more ‘up’ than me and did more pieces on trains than me but I was still there doing my thing on the trains for a good couple of years and I spent a lot of my best memories bombing with some of these guys, who showed me the ropes and took me to yards, the others I looked up to and emulated their work.

The early graffiti scene was however vital to my development and one of the biggest influences on what made me the artist I am today. I can almost feel the crunch of gravel under my feet, surge of adrenalin thumping in my heart and the sickly smell of the paint fumes…

I got the idea for this series of paintings as this was a time in history that most never got to see, so decided to try and get the vibe of those mad days across as well as I could. Anyone who wants to see photos from this era of London graffiti should check out Rocking The City . [Admin edit: Sadly site down, but photos remain here 2025.]

Tribute to London Graffiti Pioneers crops