An Article by F. A. (876 words, 5 min. read)
When the BIC Becomes a Language
At Jacques Oueiss Gallery, during the month of October, Farid Schoucair takes one of the most ordinary objects imaginable and pushes it far beyond its everyday function. A BIC ballpoint pen becomes his sole instrument, and through it, he builds an entire visual vocabulary.
Thousands of lines accumulate, intersect, tighten, loosen and change direction until the simple act of drawing acquires an almost physical intensity. Schoucair, a Canadian-Lebanese artist, has worked extensively with the BIC pen, exploring time, perception, the body, nature and abstraction. Looking closely at these works immediately changes the way they are perceived. What seems from a distance to be a field of color becomes, at close range, an extraordinary concentration of marks. The image exists through patience.
Time Made Visible
Schoucair’s statement includes a sentence that seems to contain the key to the entire exhibition: “The image is time made visible.” It is particularly accurate here because time is almost tangible. Each work records hours of repetitive movement. The hand travels across the surface, again and again, while the body participates in the process. Drawing becomes a form of choreography. A line becomes structure, repetition creates rhythm, and color begins to move.
This accumulation is fascinating because the viewer becomes aware of the duration hidden inside the image. One can imagine the concentration required to cover such large surfaces with marks made by a tool associated with quick notes, signatures and spontaneous scribbles. Schoucair reverses its usual relationship with speed. The BIC pen becomes an instrument of slowness.
From Density to Silence
The works move between very different degrees of density. Some surfaces are almost saturated with lines. Blue, red, green and black overlap so intensely that the eye begins to lose the individual mark and perceive a vibrating atmosphere. In other compositions, space is more open. Large strokes seem to float independently, allowing the white ground to participate in the composition.
This alternation gives the exhibition its rhythm. Schoucair understands that repetition needs breathing space. In one work, the viewer is drawn into an almost obsessive network of tiny marks. In another, elongated colored forms stand apart like fragments of an unknown alphabet. Elsewhere, horizontal bands of blue, green, pink and violet create an entirely different tempo, more ordered and architectural.
The BIC remains the same. The possibilities seem endless.
Between Abstraction and Recognition
Schoucair also moves freely between abstraction and recognizable imagery. Faces appear, highly graphic and divided into areas of black, white and color. An owl sits against a meticulously organized grid. Trees emerge against deep blue and green landscapes. Other works abandon recognizable subjects and allow line and color to become the subject themselves.
One particularly striking image reveals a human face through an immense accumulation of minute marks. From nearby, the surface seems almost impossible to decipher. At a distance, the face slowly appears. This play between seeing and losing the image is central to Schoucair’s approach. Perception depends on distance. The eye constantly adjusts between detail and whole, mark and image, chaos and organization.
Color Built Line by Line
Color here has a peculiar quality because it is constructed rather than simply applied. There is no broad brush loaded with pigment covering the surface in seconds. Color grows through the multiplication of lines. Blue becomes deeper because blue has been repeated hundreds or thousands of times. Red gains intensity through concentration. Green expands through patient accumulation.
The Color Wheels series pushes this idea even further. Structured as grids of small chromatic units, these works initially recall color charts or systems of classification. Yet their gradual transitions create movement. Colors migrate across the surface, meet, intensify and dissolve into neighboring tones. A rational structure begins to produce an emotional experience.
Two Works Enter the BIC Collection
In September 2026, two works from Schoucair’s Color Wheels series entered the permanent contemporary art collection of BIC Museum in France. This makes him the first Lebanese artist represented in the collection, and the first from Lebanon.
The acquisition has particular meaning because BIC is already inseparable from Schoucair’s artistic practice. The company that produces his chosen instrument now preserves two results of that long relationship. An everyday pen travels from factory to artist’s hand, from repeated line to completed image, and finally into the permanent collection of the company that made it.
The Discipline Behind the Image
What stays with us after seeing these works is the amount of discipline hidden behind their apparent freedom. Thousands of small decisions are involved. Pressure, direction, repetition, interruption, density and color gradually build the image. Schoucair’s work asks for time from the artist and then asks for time from the viewer.
Perhaps this is why the BIC pen feels so appropriate. It is familiar, democratic and almost invisible in daily life. Here, it becomes capable of producing complex surfaces, portraits, landscapes, chromatic systems and vast abstract fields. Schoucair transforms a tool found in nearly every pocket and on every desk into a demanding artistic medium.
His own formulation remains the simplest way to understand the experience: “Patience is the medium. The BIC pen is the instrument.” And throughout this exhibition, patience can indeed be seen, line after line.
