CES MCCULLY
I am an Australian artist based in the south of France, working between abstraction and soft, sculptural painting. My practice centres on two core bodies of work: abstracted 'soft' paintings and the 'Monstres'. Both focus on holding evidence of the body and resisting the hyperreal in favour of something slower and more human. Each work is built through hand-tufting fabric into the canvas before painting begins, creating surfaces that feel lived-in rather than perfected. By blurring painting and textile, I unsettle distinctions between hard and soft, image and object, and ideas of strength and vulnerability.
ABSTRACT 'SOFT' PAINTINGS
These works sit somewhere between abstraction and language. Developing slowly over time, these forms have become like personal hieroglyphs; they might suggest letters or figures, but they are not meant to be decoded. What matters most is how they are felt in the body; a sense of warmth, rhythm and ease. The idea of comfort is central here, not as style or nostalgia, but as a deeply human need: the safety of being able to exhale.
THE 'MONSTRES'
The 'monstres' push this softness into a sharper, more unstable territory. There’s a contradiction between the comforting materials and the powerful, totemic forms. The figures draw on ideas of our shadow selves, difference and othering, and what we choose to reveal or keep hidden. While sometimes appearing threatening, their softness complicates this reading, leaving the viewer to sit with a sense of warmth and unease at the same time.
Together, these two bodies form a single practice. One leans toward comfort and shelter; the other toward discomfort and ambiguity. Both rely on touch, repetition, and imperfection as a way of insisting on the human presence within the work.