Loserville

I discovered "Loserville" today.

 

 Adam Cullen 'Kelly' 2009 Image courtesy of www.artequity.com

 

 It certainly woke me up.

The works you can see in this post are all by the Australian painter Adam Cullen.

'Loserville' was his world brandished with death, decapitation, limbs, erections, animals, clowns, cowboys and guns.

I was immediately drawn in by his bold use of line and colour. The weird yet alluring juxtaposition of humour and anguish only pulled me in further.

I had to ask myself, just what exactly was I looking at and why have I not heard of this artist before?

 

 

Adam Cullen 'Anything I say or do' 2001 Image courtesy of Art Gallery NSW

I don't think I would have discovered him unless I had been living on this side of the world. The more I begin to see & read about this artist, the more I am interested. That's when I discover he died last year. 

His life was a concoction of fire arms, drugs & alcohol. In art school he chained a dead pig's head to his leg for a performance for two weeks. He apparently listened to the Meat Puppets and Black Flag (hell yeah!) when he painted.

I'm sitting trying to get my head around this person when really all I need to do is look at the art work. 

There's an illustrious sensitivity to what he creates. Yes there are bold gestural marks, which some may find harsh and overwhelmingly unpleasant but these are the same marks which made me look at this artist. Made me 'wake up'. This is perhaps his intention. The sensitivity to me lies in the choosing of subject matter and in his portrayal of said subjects such as masculinity, human/animal behaviour and murder in society today.

 

 

Adam Cullen 'She must have known' 2001 Image courtesy of www.terminartors.com

There's something about the bold marks which make me think of Francis Bacon. Though Cullen is slightly more acidic in colour scheme, he and Bacon both try to examine what exactly it is that makes us human's human. 

 

 

Adam Cullen 'Auto Portrait' 2007 Image courtesy of kollektor.com.au

Which makes me think about Margaret Thatcher famously calling Francis Bacon "That man that paints those dreadful paintings". I wonder what Baroness Thatcher would think of our Adam Cullen today? I guess we will never know.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam Cullen 'Kelly with Seargent Steele's Horse' 2010 Image courtesy of www.artequity.com

 

 

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Image Credits in ascending order: www.artetiquity.com, Art Gallery NSW, www.terminartors.com, www.kollektor.com.au, www.artequity.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted April 12, 2013 05:57

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