Paul Cullen

Things from Geology (Underworld), 2016

concrete, timber, paint, plywood, artificial grass, plants, steel, map and acrylic map holder
10,000 x 15,000 mm (variable)

Things from Geology (Underworld) originates from the predominantly hidden world of geology. The greater part of Waiheke Island comprises material that is around 150-250 million years old, particularly undurated greywacke sandstone and argillite, enormously compressed and fractured by tectonic activity. Things from Geology directs attention to the material world and encourages reflection on the active participation of the forces of vibrant matter in events.

An outcrop of anthropocene rock supports what might be an incomplete viewing platform or perhaps a partial mini-golf course or artificial garden. It acts as a hypothetical site for gaining a geologic view and, in the spirit of providing an informative scientific overview, includes a free ‘pataphysical map’ of Waiheke Island in which the lineaments are emphasised and so locates the sculpture within a wider geologic context.

– Paul Cullen

This project could not have been made without the assistance of Ammon Ngakuru.

Paul Cullen

born 1949, Te Awamutu
Lives and works in Auckland

Paul Cullen’s practice is focused on sculptural installation and objects conceived through a conceptual interest in the notion of the provisional and unfinished. His projects incorporate process and change, exploring the impossibility of arriving at a completed and final form. Cullen’s practice is underpinned by an interest in the provisional nature of knowledge, research into space in particular designed spaces such as pleasure gardens which offer both philosophical and pragmatic views of the world and furniture as a reference for the body and as a pointer towards structural instability.

Dr Paul Cullen is an Associate Professor in Visual Arts at AUT University. Exhibiting nationally and internationally, recent projects include: Provisional Arrangements, SoFA Gallery, Canterbury University (2016); The Orange Theory, Valija Diplomatic Low Cost, international travelling exhibition (2016/17); The Brain, Te Uru Art Gallery (2015), Monument, Brick Bay Sculpture Trail (2015) and Survey with incomplete models, ZK/U Berlin (2015). Cullen’s work is in private and public collections.

paulcullen.info
Represented by Two Rooms Gallery, Auckland