James Mylne Summary
Location: SW London.
Education: BA degree in Drawing and MA degree, Camberwell College of Arts, London.
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Representation: Non exclusively with various art dealers and UK based galleries
James Mylne is a British contemporary artist known for his drawings in ballpoint pen. His technical abilities with the unorthodox art medium have earned Mylne recognition in Europe and the UK, where he is considered among the leaders of the genre and emulated by art students.[1] The Ballpointer online journal called Mylne “Britain’s premier ballpoint pen artist” in a 2015 feature article.[2] The artist’s photorealist likenesses of iconic celebrities attracted early media attention and continues to be one aspect of his output. Mylne also creates mixed-media works adding spray paint, magic markers and more to his ballpoint originals. – Wikipedia.
Technical Background
“As a teen I discovered the benefits of using ballpoint pens over pencil for creating photo realistic artworks.
From the age of 19 I was selling my ballpoint drawings. Back then I was literally one of the only people on the planet working in biro.
At university my tutors were not too keen on my drawings, viewing them as just pretty pictures. Now I’m the only professional artist from that course and ballpoint drawing has grown in popularity, becoming an accepted medium within the art world.
In the last ten years I have expanded on the technique to include other media such as spray paints, markers, inks, and even collage.
Subject Matter
My artwork received a fair amount of media coverage around 2012 for my photo realistic drawings of famous icons old & new, I still love these works and I often still do the odd one in this way, however my work has been progressing further.
In recent years I’ve been slowly and purposefully digging deeper regarding the subject matter. Instead of innocently covering celebrity, I’ve been stripping away the surface and exploring the darker side associated with popular culture, shameless vanity, and our ironic search for identity within it all. My understanding is that there is no real self, so our intent of defining ourselves is inherently flawed.
The main driver behind this evolving approach is my fascination and deep beliefs rooted in Buddhist principles. An example of how this has been manifesting in my work is in my latest series: “On Lux Bags”.
Notable Points
More information on Wikipedia’s page for James here.
Below are some images summarizing some press coverage of James Mylne Art over recent years:
Really would love to see your work. Dates, places. please.
Hello
My colleague just showed me your work, she’s a huge fan of it and it completely shut me up! We read that when you were at college your tutors thought your work was ‘just pretty pictures’. How wrong they were as you have amazing talent, also good for you for persisting to make the medium and use of the ball point pen look literally breathtaking . I too went to art college, BA + MA and was slated for focussing on screen printing – so what!
Good luck in your burgeoning career.
All the best
Emma and MNV
Hi
I’ve been looking for artist that uses ballpoint pen and I found your would which I think is brilliant. would love to study your work for my A level project. Is there any places which I can find your work to look at in person e.g any galleries which show it and where. thank you
Hi there
Amazing work. I’ve done a few sketches in biro and enjoyed the challenge of not being able to make any mistakes. How do you get round the issue of light fastness and longevity of biro when you put so much work into your pieces. Heartbreaking to think that they will fade. It’s putting me off investing time into getting better in this medium. Any advice greatly appreciated.
I have followed your work for a few years now I love your concepts
Bought a picture 13 years ago still love it
So epic artwork!! I were thinking about how do you do to avoid ink mistakes, are you constantly cleaning the ballpoints?