Cigarillo cases drawn with a ballpoint pen – Johan Van Mullem, a singular artist

The artist Johan Van Mullem has chosen the cigarillo box as a way of setting down his moods. More unusual still is his working tool, which is none other than the ballpoint pen.

He has turned this ordinary everyday object into a drawing instrument, and with it he gives cigarillo boxes a soul.
According to the artist, the drawings he creates are a snapshot of what he feels at the time.
Always having a ballpoint pen to hand, he draws whenever he is in a creative mood.

Drawing with a ballpoint pen is becoming more and more widespread. Could ballpoint graphic work be a new art form?

An unusual object transformed for the pleasure of the eye…

For Johan Van Mullem it certainly is. He has managed to turn this rather unexpected object, an everyday one for some, into a work of art.
For him, the cigarillo box is a case of its own kind, an intimate object rediscovered each time it is opened.

The works of Johan Van Mullem, a nest of emotions…

It was at Glabais, on 19 and 20 and then 26 and 27 November, that Johan Van Mullem presented his work to the public in an inventive exhibition.

With the ballpoint pen, an unusual yet familiar tool, the painter mainly produces portraits shaped by his mood on the day. His works have even been described as a graphic “Commedia dell’Arte”.
Choosing the cigarillo box as a support reinvents the work, concentrating the sensations and emotions expressed and released through his creations. The combination of an uncommon, indeed exceptional, tool and support is what makes this painter so singular.