Overview
Johan Van Mullem
JOHAN VAN MULLEM
has been drawing faces since early childhood. He always wanted to paint, an activity apparently inaccessible since he became an architect, obeying the expectations of his family. Van Mullem, however, engraved for several years, with mastery, in evening classes, notably a gallery of profiles inspired by anarchist files and, from the front, the grimaces of heads captured in cry or astonishment. When his obligations deprived him of this pleasure, he tended towards pictoriality through an exaltation of the inking of the support, the forced contrasts beyond the forms and to the detriment of the lines.


Van Mullem keeps his civil servant-urban planner blotters, large green rectangles covered with graffiti: a spontaneous, unreflected, authentic expression. To fulfill his vocation, to become himself, he finally rented a large studio where he devoted himself to drawing and painting, now exclusively from the imagination.

Apart from very small opulent female nudes, they are always heads, on squares of smooth, white cardboard, measuring four feet on a side. Some are drawn in pencil with large, nervous strokes, others painted, with or without prior tracing, in print colors wetted with white spirit. The faces are less representations (nostalgic by nature) than evocations awaiting the future or incarnation, invocations in short. Van Mullem lets it come, without knowing. He works on his paintings head on, he never takes them back. Some are erased in places, details are avoided here, highlighted there. Sometimes the whole seems to emerge from the support like an apparition.

These heads are marked by life, age, the strong expression of feelings in which Van Mullem sees beauty - rather than in the aesthetic function which is accomplished - although his (recent) pictorial practice naturally dooms him to experiment the variety of contrasts useful to deepen the space with a sensory depth, to which some of his exploits already demonstrate. For him it is not a question of optimizing know-how, of which he is wary, but of inducing the place of emotion, a space open enough for it to be frequented for a long time.
Works
Exhibitions
Biography
Johan Van Mullem

Solo Exhibitions

2023    For Love's S(nake) . Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts . Bruxelles ( BE ) . march

2022    ATARAXIE .  Loo & Lou Gallery .  Paris ( FR ) .  fev

2019    APNEA .  GR Gallery.  New York ( US ) .  nov

2019    REVERENCE .  Unit London .  London ( GB ) .  march

2018    Bleu Topique .  Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins.  Mougins ( FR ).  nov

2017    3 Espaces, 3 Univers .  LOO & Lou Gallery .  Paris ( FR ).  march

2016    GALERIE DUCHOZE .  Rouen ( FR ) .  oct

2016    DE ANIMA .  the UNIT LONDON .  London ( UK ) .  dec

2016    Espace B .  Glabais ( BEL ) .  nov

2016    MUSEE D'IXELLES .  Brussels ( BEL ) .  oct

2015    Face à Face .  Galerie SCHWAB BEAUBOURG .  Paris ( FR ) .  sept

2015    Fiat Lux .  Hus Gallery .  London ( UK ) .  june

2014    MUSEE D'IXELLES.  acquisition d'une oeuvre .  sept

2014    Meta Morphoses .  MACADAM Gallery .  Bruxelles ( BEL ) .  oct

2014    C24 Gallery .  New York (  USA ) .  jan

2013    Origin.  Hus Gallery .  London ( UK ).  oct

2012    Andipa & Hus Gallery .  London ( UK ) .  nov

2011    Hus Gallery .  London ( UK ) .  jun

2011    Arthus Gallery .  Brussels ( BEL ) .  sept

2010    Chapelle de Boondael .  Brussels ( BEL ) .  may

2010    Anarto .  Anvers ( BEL ) .nov

Group Exhibitions

2022   "RECUEIL Chapitre I" . Galerie B . Durbuy ( BEL ) . mars

2021    Back to life .  GR Gallery .  New York ( USA ) .  june

2021    "When photos spy the paintings" . Galerie B. Durbuy ( BEL ) . may

2019    Festival Damme .  Damme ( BEL ) .  sept

2019    iide - International Interior Design Exhibition .  Bruxelles ( BEL ) .  sept

2019    BENJAMIN ECK PROJECTS .  Munich ( DE ) .  jan

2017    L'expressionisme contemporain en France et ses marges .  Kaunas ( LIT ) .  nov

2017    Abstract X ed # 2 .  Aeroplastics .  Bruxelles ( BEL ) .  june

2017    Abstract X ed # 1 .  Aeroplastics .  Bruxelles ( BEL ) .  apr

2017    ART PARIS ART FAIR .  with LOO & LOU GALLERY .  apr

2016    ART'UP ROUEN .  Rouen ( FR ) .  oct

2016    drawing rooms#2 .  PAK GISTEL ( BEL) .  sept

2016    This is not a landscape .  PAK GISTEL ( BEL ) .  may

2016    Créations Belges .  MAZEL GALERIE .  Bruxelles ( BEL ) .  feb

2015    8 ème Avenue .  Paris ( FR ) .  oct

2015    Mosaïques .  Pont Sainte Marie ( FR ) .  oct

2015    Kantfabriek .  Vilvoorde ( BEL ) .  sept

2015    ART'UP  with Macadam gallery .  Lille ( FR ) .  feb 

2014    SAO - PAULO International Art Fair with Hus Gallery .  ( BZL ) .  apr

2014    DALLAS Art Fair with Hus Gallery .  ( USA ) .  apr

2014    Paysagistes contemporains, autour de Nehlich.  Galerie Schwab Beaubourg . Paris ( FR ) .  

2013    BRAFA with Sem-Art .  Brussels ( BEL ) .  jan

2012    Hus Gallery .  Gstaad ( CH ) .  feb

2011    Lineart Gent with Macadam gallery .  Gent ( BEL ) .  feb

2011    Art Fair London with Hus gallery .  London ( UK ) .  oct

2011    Sem-Art & Hus Gallery .  Monaco ( MO ) .  may

2010    Lille Art Fair with Macadam gallery .  Lille ( FR ) .  may

2010    Art Gallery 826 .  nokke ( BEL ) .  may

2010    AAF Paris with Art gallery 826 .  Paris ( FR ) .  may

2010    été Contemporain Dracenois .  Draguignan ( FR ) .  aug

2010    AAF London with Art Gallery 826 .  London ( UK ) .  oct