Lot 34

Some wear to the far corners and some minor pigment marks around the upper right. There is a pigment lower right below the bottle, uncertain if this is inherent to the work.


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The Artist's studio
Private collection, Melbourne

Periz., I, Adam Cullen- Scars Last Longer, Craftsman House, Melbourne, 2004, p. 51 (illus.)

A true frontliner of the Australian contemporary art scene, Adam Cullen is best known for his visually disarming paintings which examine the human condition. Cullen's works are intimately linked to his own personal life, drawing upon issues he faced during his lifetime. Although his works can be funny, honest and often controversial, he never strayed from his commitment to these subjects, humanising them through his own visual commentary.

Growing up in Sydney's northern beaches, Cullen always knew he wanted to be an artist. As a teenager he painted landscapes in the Heidelberg tradition and worked as a preparator at Sydney's Maritime Museum, however it wasn't until he witnessed Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son (1819-1823) at the Prado, that he realised his future in painting was truly confirmed.

'I was absolutely in awe. I thought this is exactly what I want to do' 1.

From there he approached his work with an unapologetic aesthetic- 'genitalia, headless females, popes, crooners, crooks and kangaroos' 2 became the regular subjects in his works. Cullen went so far as to chain a pigs head to his ankle and skin a cat at his graduate show, causing viewers to report him to the RSCPA and police. Inviting criticism, he never shyed away from shocking his audience.

Moving away from the 90's grunge aesthetic, Cullen's later paintings often included confronting text. These inscriptions began to invade the pictorial canvas, often speaking to a time in Cullen's life where addiction was prevalent.

Toilet Training 2003 explores a pre-occupying theme in his later practise: alcoholism. This work depicts a bright-haired female, with fish-net stockings, sitting on a toilet with 'Lorn to Booze' inscribed on the nearby bottle's label. Within the same series, Cullen featured two cars full of empty beer bottles, advising viewers that this work is 'best viewed drunk' and another work titled My head Is A Car Full of Beer Bottles bearing nothing more than bold text scrawled across a large canvas. Cullen humanises his subjects by presenting them in their most vulnerable states, contrasting this in often bright and alarming palettes. Toilet Training 2003 is raw and confronting, painted at a time when 'most of the art at the end of 20th century [was] merely overdesigned, overdetermined and overprotected by critical babble' 3.

Cullen took to the canvas with an accomplished technique, producing some of most thought-provoking and authentic art that has placed him in his own category of contemporary art. As controversial as Cullen's work might be, he was present in the moment, honest in his depictions and completely unapologetic.

Lucy Foster
Art Specialist

1. Periz, I., Adam Cullen- Scars Last Longer, Craftsman House, Melbourne 2004, p. 9
2. Ibid. p. 11
3. Ibid. p. 48