Chappell has always lived around the area. He remembers the scene from when it was first starting to happen in the area. Then Shoreditch was a different place. He would hang out at the old Dragon Bar on Leonard Street. it was a time when Banksy was selling canvasses on the street for five hundred quid. When impromptu shows were curated by hanging art on the sides of abandoned pub walls. His own foray into the world of the street was fleeting. Chappell would go by the name Twiy and might do the odd tag, character or paste up. He hung around the scene and got to know people but was never as involved as some of the more hard core characters. Now firmly a studio artist, he describes his time on the street as dipping his toe into the scene. Certainly he doesn’t choose to describe himself as either a street artist or graffiti writer. Now Chappell combines his art with his business, as the founder of the London design agency Colt. Although these days that is very much his day job, I get the impression that the artist is still yearning to get out. Already he is talking about potential shows and indeed he talks about the difference between Alex the designer and Alex the artist. Alex’s work takes us into the world of the street and the world of the graffiti writer. It reminds us of the public and hidden faces that many of these artists have had as they stare out from behind the tagged pane of glass. Here are artists who, in their own way, have helped to shape the scene as it is today.