Adam Cullen

Adam Cullen was born in Sydney in 1965. He attended the City Art Institute, Sydney in the mid 1980s and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1986. The following year, in 1987, Cullen earned a Graduate Diploma of Professional Art Studies from the same institution. Later In 1999 the artist received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of New South Wales.

Amongst other conceptual concerns Cullen remains transfixed by the human condition and his use of dark and sometimes base imagery including demonic clowns, decapitated creatures, outsiders, and the marginalized often prompts a visceral response from his audience.

The artist’s work has been exhibited widely throughout Australia and abroad since the early 1990s. Selected exhibitions his work has been curated in include Australian Perspecta, Art Gallery of New South Wales (1993);  Fluxibelstructures, Kunsthaus Oerlikon, Zurich, Switzerland (1995); Preambles, Australian Perspecta, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (1999); Art in the World, Pont Alexandre III, Paris, France (2000); Video-Salon, Week of Art and New Media, Brussels, Belgium (2000); 25th Bienal de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2002); Bitter Sweet, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2002); Identity and Desire, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2005); CRASH (and other worldly pleasures) Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia, Perth (2006); Bon Scott Project, Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle (2008) and neo goth: back in black, The University of Queensland Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane (2008).

In mid 2008 Cullen’s work was the subject of a major survey exhibition, ADAM CULLEN. LET’S GET LOST, curated by the Art Gallery of New South Wales and was accompanied by a major catalogue published by the gallery. A finalist many times over in the Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, in 2000 he won the Archibald with his composition Portrait of David Wenham 2000. This success was followed by his winning the Mosman Art Prize in 2005 and only very recently the 2008 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize with his piece Pegasus Flying over Sydney 2008.

Collections in which Cullen’s work is represented include National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Artbank, Griffith University Art Collection, The University of Queensland Art Museum, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Tweed River Art Gallery, Geelong Art Gallery, and the Monash University Gallery.

In 2004 the monograph Adam Cullen: Scars Last Longer was published by Craftsman House through the Thames and Hudson publishing group.