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- Ciaran Cullen
Ciaran
Cullen
Threshold
Ciaran Cullen is a visual artist, living and working in Co. Clare, Ireland. His work has ranged from video, photography, and installation, but he is predominantly an object-based sculptor. Growing up in the seventies and eighties and witnessing the biggest cultural shift in Irish society, with the downfall of the catholic church, Ciaran’s work addresses issues that are associated with religious and state-run institutes.
He photographs and collects objects from various contested sites, which include asylums and educational institutes. The process of collecting and the sites where the materials are sourced are important aspects of his practice. This action informs certain attributes of his sculptural practice and is an integral part of the final outcome. The materials that mostly interest him are weighted objects that bespeak the presence of a human being. Ciaran works through the object, usually this involves breaking it down to its component parts, playing with the materiality, its colour and abstracting it. In carrying out these processes Ciaran is mindful of retaining the meaning that the object has acquired in the practice of everyday life.