Last night saw the opening of the ‘Doing Lines’ group exhibition from Captain Kris, the Real Dill, Tony Boy and Obit at the BSMT Space in Dalston, presenting an exceptionally immersive display of collaborative illustration talent. This exhibit further demonstrates the ever-increasing potential of this newly established gallery, bringing only their third major show and offering a completely different range of works and of artists to the previous two exhibitions held over the last couple of months.

The level of activity in this incredible exhibition is at first almost overwhelming. you just don’t know where to focus, there is just that much going on. It took the artists some 30 hours each over the previous three days, totaling some 120 combined man-hours, culminating in the complete transformation of this gallery space into a veritable feast of illustration fun. Completed entirely by paint pens and fueled by an abundance of hyper-exaggerated characters and surreal scenarios, what’s most impressive about this display is not just the sheer scale of it, but the amount of detail in the work, which really demonstrates the cohesive nature with which these artists work together.

The show is devoid of individual ego and designed to take a step back from commonplace exhibition pretensions, but merely provide the opportunity for four friends, all practicing artists, to have some fun and celebrate the enjoyment they have painting together. In the work as you start to hone your focus you can begin to see the individual elements and contributions from each of the artists, however this works strength certainly lies in the manner in which the work combines and feeds off of one another for the mighty whole in all its intricacy.

While the artists dubbed this show as not being any of that normal “canvas on a wall stuff”, there are in fact seven canvas works in the show, craftily painted upon virtually flat canvas boards and merely intermingled as apart of the large-scale mural, certainly easy to initially miss. There were no preliminary sketches or ideas for this epic illustration, instead the artists just got together and let the work flow, making for a real organic and spontaneous creation. There are some minor themes to various sections of the work, with one portion depicting scenes from an underwater world, another focusing on dogs and one taking a focus on food for example. All round the show has a sense of fun and hint of chaos about it, some of the tongue-in-cheek tone can be exemplified through the very name of the exhibition ‘Doing Lines’, conjuring a sense of debauchery and hedonistic intent, which is only exemplified in the work displayed.

The BSMT Space can be found at 5 Stoke Newington Road and the ‘Doing Lines’ show runs until November 15th, so if you haven’t already, head along to see the great show for yourselves, you really won’t be disappointed.

Section of work – Part 1.

Section of work – Part 2.

Section of work – Part 3.

Section of work – Part 4.

Section of work – Part 5.

Section of work – Part 6.

Here you can see a hint of one of the canvas works, which superbly blends into its surroundings.

As well as the canvas works and print on sale there was also this unforgettable installation work crafted in order to poke fun at the pretentious side of contemporary art exhibitions, providing a surreal, yet most entertaining, addition to a fantastic display of harmonious collaborative illustration splendor.