Talented Creative BLLACK LINE shares his journey as an artist in London, and how he seeks to diversify the imagery we see in museums today. BLLACK LINE has had the opportunity to collaborate with major brands early in his career, be sure to read more to gain insight on his journey.

How would you describe the work that you do?

“My work is an reflection of my obsessions with music, fashion, health, hip-hop and sneaker culture. I hear an Musician I like, I draw them. I see an trainer I like, I draw them.”

As an upcoming creative, what advice would you give to others that look to collaborate with brands as you’ve done?

“Make sure your work is super original. A lot of these brands want original work cause they want to stand out from the rest. they won’t waste their time on someone who creates the same work as everyone else. You also gotta network like crazy. Your work can be the best thing out but if you have no exposure then none of these big brands will see it and that means they have no way to find you.”

What keeps you motivated? 

“It’s many things. The love of drawing, progress made work wise, recognition. It’s a lot but at the moment my biggest motivator is the dream of being able to live off art and art alone.”

With your artwork what things do you look to change? 

“I want to change the standard of people you see hanged up on walls as beautiful artwork in museums. When you go to art museums you see thousands of drawings of white men and white women but when it comes to black people they’re almost impossible to find. I want to see more drawings of black people in these museums.”

What has been the most exciting project you have worked on? 

“The work I did for Nike. Me and six other illustrators were given a colour way for the new Nike Air Max 270 React. Each colourway was inspired by a different art movement. We were each given a colourway and told that we had to create artwork about the trainer inspired by our selected colourway’s art movement (mine was mid-century). The exciting part about this project was the fact that we had to create artwork for the trainer without drawing the actual trainer.”

Follow BLLACK LINE on socials: Twitter and Instagram.