“7 Styles” is the first exhibition brought to you by the Archipelago Works, a newly opened gallery space in Sheffield part owned by the city’s  resident art terrorist Kid Acne.

As you may have guessed the show features brand new works from 7 of the most colourful and graphic street artists working today including Kid Acne, Sweet Toof, Cept, Dscreet, Pinky, Infinite Livez and Russell Maurice.

The gallery space at Archipelago Works is relatively modest, having only two small rooms to display the work of 7 loud artists the exhibition could have been a total disaster, luckily the organisers have been very cautious as to the lay-out of the show; carefully selecting prints and originals that worked well together. Never did the show feel cluttered or like to much information was thrown at you at any one time.

Each piece had adequate room to breath on the wall, with limited edition prints displayed in the first room and original pieces in their second including some adventurous wood carvings from Kid Acne. The simplicity of the latter suggests that these were prototypes of Acne’s for a medium which he may explore in the future rather than gallery standard pieces.

The quality of work at “7 styles” was, for the most part, well rounded. No contributor stood out in a particularly dominating way; every artist brought something to the table, maintaining a consistent level of quality throughout. However I was expecting a little more from Pinky. Having the opportunity to display work alongside well known talent you would have thought he’d pull out something special, unfortunately he didn’t deliver.

With that said there were some really strong pieces on display, in particular I was thoroughly impressed with Russell Maurice whose prints and paintings on display had a very similar style to that of Mudwig Dan.  At this show the artist had placed little sculptures and trinkets over the fireplace in both rooms engaging the viewer and inviting them to move in for a closer look.

The show also introduced me to the work of Dscreet, an artist who presents his work in an old skool style using chunky characters in a bold and colourful manner. In particular his piece “subway art” left a positive impression and I’ll certainly be keeping a look out for any of his work in the future.

Just like “Ways Of  Seeing” this show would have definitely benefited from some sort of collaboration piece from the artists involved. I also thought that the building lacked atmosphere, you would have found it hard to view the exhibition for more than an hour. It wouldn’t have killed them to put a couple of speakers in each room and played some light music on a low volume if only to make the building seem less cold and deserted. But with that said the setting seemed to work for this show, the pieces on display were great for the most part and as a first show “7 Styles” has set a very high bar for the Archipelago Works gallery and we look forward to their next show on Halloween.

Exhibition Rating: 7 out of 10