A resource site for visual art teachers and secondary students completing their HSC in the Visual Arts
Abbey McCulloch
Bombe Alaska 2011
Oil on canvas
150 x 120cm
image credits: http://www.helengory.com
Abbey McCulloch
Bell Pepper 2011
Oil on canvas
150 x 120cm
image credits: http://www.helengory.com
Abbey McCulloch, born 1975, New Zealand, lives and works in Queensland.
Abbey McCulloch paints quirky sometimes unsettling, representations of female figures sketched onto a sparse background. Working with bold colour choices and often highly textured facial features, McCulloch creates visually engaging paintings, resulting in figures that entice us, yet stand guarded and restrained within our presence. Raw emotion is presented to us through the use of loose charcoal sketches that work up to the highly worked-up painted facial expressions. “I like the idea of exposing the processes and, in doing so, the final product is left with a more restless conclusion.”
Abbey McCulloch draws her inspiration from friends, family, glossy magazines and photographs she has taken of women in shopping centers and off the street, looking for those awkward interactions that happen within these settings. Completing a masters in fine art from the Queensland College of Art and working from a studio along the Gold Coast, McCulloch’s paintings often resemble an expressive style done with a minimalist aesthetic. McCulloch cites Nan Goldin, Ellen von Unwerth and Steven Klien as influences on her work and practice.
These paintings explore women within all their complexities and contradictions, the figures are guarded, yet also on display. “I want these works to flirt with resemblance. It is not of concern to me if my works are complete and faithful reflections. I don’t want a xerox. I am in pursuit of something that is not visible. I want to construct a version of a person as I think they should be seen.” McCulloch’s paintings play with proportion and scale, exaggerating lines giving the figures an alluring yet sinister charm.
I look for awkward locations such as shopping malls and cafes, places where people reveal their vulnerabilities. These places make for great psychological landscapes where people are thrust into situations, where judgements are being made, where they are manufacturing roles and putting up defenses.
– Abbey McCulloch
They’re multi-faceted. They’re confident yet insecure, they want to flirt but don’t want to be seduced… They’re extremely complex, but very real.
– Helen Gory
Abbey’s got this very nice, loose, illustrative style that has that feeling of graffitied spontaneity to it.
– Edward Colless
I guess it comes down to the nature of what attracts you to some people. It can be quite a narcissistic process, because you look for elements you see in yourself or want for yourself in someone else, or even just things you admire.
– Abbey McCulloch
I’m not going to stop and start painting trains. There’s a minefield of social and psychological ammunition out there – it’s endless… If I could succinctly capture everything I see every type of woman doing, then I’ll expand my subject matter. But until then I’m kept challenged by these creatures of duality and extremes.
– Abbey McCulloch
Her paintings are really quirky and funky and out there, but she’s still using traditional and beautiful drawing components and combining them with traditional painting components.
– Helen Gory
Her subjects are at once brave and vulnerable, glamorous and self-conscious, ostentatious and selfcontrolled offering a version of beauty tainted by the unsettling and strange. …. The beauty of McCulloch’s women is in the way they are rendered, for they are raw and unconstrained.
– Jess Berry 2010
Abbey McCulloch
Cabin Fever 3 2010
Charcoal on paper
51 x 64cm
image credits: http://www.helengory.com
Abbey McCulloch
Typhoon 2010
Oil on canvas
100 x 100cm
image credits: http://www.helengory.com
THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:
ARTIST
ARTWORK
AUDIENCE
WORLD
Abbey McCulloch
SALLY 2009
Oil on canvas
100 x 100cm
image credits: http://www.helengory.com
Abbey McCulloch
Nell 2009
Oil and charcoal on canvas
150 x 90cm
image credits: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au
THE FRAMES:
SUBJECTIVE
STRUCTURAL
CULTURAL
POSTMODERN
Abbey McCulloch
I Don’t Want To Think
Oil on Canvas
60 x 75 cm
image credits: http://www.schubertcontemporary.com.au/
Abbey McCulloch
Snygg 2008 (triptych)
oil on canvas
120 x 450cm
image credits: http://www.helengory.com
PRACTICE:
Abbey McCulloch
Delphine 2010
Oil on canvas
100 x 100cm
image credits: http://www.helengory.com
Abbey McCulloch
Of Things to Come 2011 (installation view)
Oil on canvas
150 x 480cm
image credits: http://www.helengory.com
RELEVANT LINKS:
http://www.helengory.com/#/Artist/Abbey-McCulloch/Work
http://www.schubertcontemporary.com.au/Contemporary/Links/McCulloch_Abbey.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s3259023.htm
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Arts/The-art-of-being-a-woman/2005/02/15/1108229993896.html
Abbey McCulloch
Toni Collette
oil on canvas
150 x 120cm
image credits: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au
Abbey McCulloch
Cabin Fever 6 2010
Charcoal on paper
51 x 64cm
image credits: http://www.helengory.com