A hair salon in central Tokyo, belonging to a Japanese patron, doubles as the Lennie Mace VIEWseum, displaying a collection of original artwork housed within an interior hand-crafted by the artist.

[5][6] Lennie Mace's first professional art-related work began appearing in New York City during the mid-1980s, from which time he gained recognition as an illustrator.

Imagery depicted in his artwork touches upon aspects of so-called high-brow and low-brow aesthetics, even during the late 1980s when there was a greater divide between both art worlds.

Mace's Pot on the Moon illustration was chosen over High Times' characteristic marijuana photography, a nude photograph of Allen Ginsberg and other designs.

His artwork was among those published in comic books showcasing the students of courses taught by Harvey Kurtzman (Mad; Playboy's Little Annie Fanny) and Will Eisner (The Spirit), respectively.

His earliest exhibitions were held annually at the I AM THE BEST ARTIST gallery of René Moncada in New York's SoHo neighborhood, at the time the city's predominant art district.

[13][15] From the start, Mace chose clever exhibition titles such as Penmanship (1991)[20] and INKorporated (1993);[21] conspicuous wordplay relating to his preferred medium of ballpoint pen.

[22][23][24][25] Noted art writer Carlo McCormick dubbed Mace the da Vinci of doodlers in a preview of an early exhibition.

Mr. Alter gave special notice to the term PENtings,[29] coined by the artist in reference to the sometime painterly quality of his more ambitious artwork in ballpoint pen, i.e. Mona a’la Mace.

Mona a’la Mace was displayed in the lobby of Pilots’ offices for a time, and may have been used for corporate publicity, but the artwork's current location and usage are unconfirmed.

[30][31] During his earliest time in Japan, he gained notoriety in Tokyo nightclubs applying ballpoint drawings onto customers’ clothing and flesh for free drinks (pictured), which led to legitimate work, including temporary tattoos for music videos, film clients, and fashion events.

[35] For this project the artist spent the full year of 1998 driving around the United States, over 30,000 miles (48,280 km) by his own account,[36] doing a drawing-per-day, embellishing whatever found-media he came across in whatever part of the country through which he happened to be traveling.

The series’ title refers to the artist's practice of embellishing existing printed matter with his ballpoint doodles, sometimes in the form of ironic commentary to what is already implied within the advertisement.

[40] As recognition of his Media Graffiti broadened, corporate interests began offering finer printings of their own products for Mace to embellish, to then be used for promotional purposes.

[43] The first began as simple interior modifications to the company's Ales International salon in Harajuku, to accommodate Mace artwork bought by the owner.

[44] Customer satisfaction and enthusiasm led to the expansion of the commission to include the full interior,[45] to provide more display space — work which would go on for nearly two years between 2000 and 2002, even as the salon remained open for business.

[1] The salon's entry walls received special attention; a ballpoint pen mural and mixed-media installation which was widely reported by both hair-make publications and general media outlets.

[3][48] Another mammoth Ales commission was a full interior mural done in paint for the company's Sugar salon — a rare occasion of Mace creating figurative imagery using a medium other than ballpoint pen, at a scale he'd never before attempted.

The ballpoint-on-denim creations, a contemporary interpretation of traditional Japanese sumi ink on washi paper scrolls, are fabricated from the artist's own used jeans.

"[1][26] He explains his ballpoint technique as "layers of overlapping lines" dependent of "pressure on the pen and texture of the paper," working with several colors simultaneously to achieve desired effects.

[23] Mace has often incorporated materials reflecting the same "proletarian" origins of his ballpoint pens;[55] office supplies and stationery such as loose leaf paper, corporate letterheads or memo pads, and post-it notes have all been utilized.

[27] New York Press supported Lennie Mace's early exhibitions by promoting his "superfine, surrealistic, and elegant" ballpoint artwork.

[9][15] Writer and performer David Aaron Clark, a fellow Screw magazine alumni and sometime collaborator, also promoted Mace's early exhibitions in previews describing "giddy, sleek masterpieces of fantasy and sensuality.

The black and white ad showed a nude Kate Moss from her waist up with one hand raised to her mouth coyly and one bare breast visible.

Juxtapoz art magazine's sister publication Erotica published a set of the series' "dirty pictures" featuring another Calvin Klein ad "liberated" as the issue's centerfold pin-up spread.

Onto a black and white underwear ad showing a woman being handled by a man from behind, Mace adds a few extra hands, including one cutting through her blouse with scissors, and the annotation "Her Wish?