ADAM CULLEN

The artist
Private collection, Melbourne; gift from the above

Work is in very good, original condition.
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Born in 1965 in Sydney, Adam Cullen obtained a B.F.A from City Art Institute (1986) and a Master's from the University of New South Wales (1999). He has enjoyed considerable critical and popular success since the early 1990s; in addition to regular solo exhibitions at commercial galleries he has featured in such curated exhibitions as the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art (Art Gallery of South Australia, 1996), Painting (Ian Potter Museum of Art, 2001) and Bitter Sweet (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2002). A regular Archibald exhibitor, he won the prize in 2000 with his portrait of actor David Wenham. He represented Australia at the XXV Biennial de Sao Paulo, Brazil (2002) and was the subject of a touring exhibition mounted by the Newcastle Region Art Gallery (Our Place in the Pacific,2003-04). A monograph on his work was published in 20041, and a major survey (Let's Get Lost) was mounted by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in May-July this year. Examples of his work are held in all major Australian public collections.

Cullen's paintings present non-encounters between a cast of comic-ugly bogans – decapitated nudes and fat, wrinkly old men,clowns and bushrangers, kangaroos and dogs – drawn boldly and blackly in front of bright, flat,monochrome grounds, occasionally enlivened with tangential texts. However, despite the vulgar brutality of the 'grunge' aesthetic and the 'bad boy' postures of his Anita Cobby and Chopper Read projects, Cullen is a cunningly decorative painter: a witty draughtsman, an instinctive colourist and a sophisticated splasher and dribbler. The present work is a fine example of his pictorial slapstick.

1. Ingrid Periz, Adam Cullen: Scars Last Longer, Craftsman House, Fisherman's Bend, 2004