I first met Adam Cullen when he stepped in as a relief teacher for my second year painting class at NAS. The subject was still life, and as we could do anything we liked, I grabbed a bunch of shiny toys that were being thrown out in front of my flat, and a newspaper. Inspired by a Japanese aesthetic I'd thrown a colour wash over the newspaper, and painted the cars in black outlines. A lot of the teachers had told me that what I was doing wasn't enough, that the back ground was too sparse, and that black was too flat a colour too be used on it's own.
Adam came 2 weeks into the project, and when I told him about some of the other teachers concerns he chuckled, and said that he really liked it.......and that contra to the archival ethic at the school, he told me to just go and buy all of my stuff from the hardware store. He not only got what I was trying to do, but pushed me even further.
Some of the other teacher's called him a "cowboy, and a bad boy", and it wasn't just his irreverent attitude that prompted you to think that there was something in what they said, even if it was said somewhat sarcastically, it was his work. Here was someone who had the same taste as his generation Basquiat, Baserlitz.......and went about producing his own brand of Culleness that stopped you dead in their tracks. It simply made what everyone else was producing look old hat.
He was funny, and generous, but could be cutting- slicing through other people's bullshit, as Charlie water street said at the funeral he had no time for pretentiousness. I used to love Adam's school boy humor, and would stir it up, with some pretty immature jokes, just to hear him crack up. I had a few teachers from my NAS days that have made a big influence. I still think when I paint "if every line is felt" thanks to Aida Tomescu, and lots of other pieces of information that found their way in from lots of inspiring people, but Adam was was also my mate, he was someone you could have a laugh, and a drink with.
I bugged him into writing some words on my artist statement For my first solo exhibition, an outline of what my exhibition was about had to be sent to him via the post.....and charmingly a typed letter with his statement arrived in the post one morning. Yep no email for him. He used words Like "bad pop" and a whole lot of stuff that sounded like he was talking more about his work than mine, but I was thrilled none the less, the fact that he took the time to do that for me, blew me away.
At the end of 2nd year assessments I remember Adam holding up a piece of my work that had a nurse wheeling a stenciled trolley, across a vast expanse of Eve Klein blue back ground, a single red and white capsule at her feet. "This is good, This is what you should be doing" he said to another student, who had done a traditional still life in muddy colours. I was flattered, but not before he turned to me and said "your work is good, but will be excellent when you have experienced pain" I went home and thought Cullen you're a wanker! In my life then as a 26 year old, who was engaged, and had an abundance of friends and family I just didn't relate to that statement. Did I really need to suffer to make great art? Couldn't I just stay happy!
5 months after I had finished 3rd year I was living in Europe already a professional artist, and pursuing exhibitions over there. The emerald engagement ring that I still wore on my right hand, represented a marriage that never happened, and was eventually stolen when I was away for the week by the Ukrainian plumbers who had come to fix the mold problem from the toilet of my 18msq apartment.
In the three years that I spent away from home, There were extreme highs and extreme lows, The highs were higher, romances were elevated to new depths, friendships took on greater solidarity, but at the same token being so far away, anything like financial stress, relationship breakup's, and illness took me to low's that I had never experienced. Over time I began to see what he meant by those words, that "My work will be far better when I have experienced pain" It's not that I had to paint about pain, it's that the deeper your experiences are, the more layers you develop as a person the richer your paintings become both in feeling and substance.
After 3 years away, I was shocked the next time I ran into Adam, poor health and addictions had frittered away a once jovial body into a a very lean version of his former self, but he was still in good spirits, painting, fighting......so in some ways I imagined that he would pull through, that he was invincible in a way. Just last Sunday I was coming back from a trip away with a group of friends who all went to NAS, Adam's name was brought up in conversation, that night the news broadcast his death. The feeling of loss and shock weighed heavily on me.......we had lost one of our greatest artists, and I would never have the chance to see him again.......ever
It's almost 10 years ago since I met Adam. There's only one time in your life as a young artist where you can have a mentor. Adam was one with out even trying. I had enormous respect for him as an artist and as a decent person who was much too down to earth to let being a famous artist get to his head.
Adam was always generous with the advice he gave, in how to cultivate a successful career, he didn't seem threatened by the talented young students who would soon compete in his field as some of the other teachers appeared to. He was as passionate as we were about changing the traditions and rigidity of academic ways of thinking, even he knew that doing that would take more than just one man.
