Bruce Cull - Connection and Response - Audio Tour

On display in Gallery 1 from June 15 to July 20, 2024

"Tobias and the Angel"

 

 

acrylic on canvas, 58 X 70 inches, $4500

Tobias and the Angel is a story of the relationship between two figures, blind Tobias and the Angel who guides him to his destination. It was the topic of many Renaissance painters. Figuratively, the story is one of faith and thus it speaks to my intuitive belief in nature. I’ve incorporated the forms of rain, sun, cloud and a black impending storm that hover over a suggestion of landscape. But nature will also heal itself if, like Tobias, we allow ourselves to trust the unknown and unknowable. The fleshy pinks and slashes of red are an assertion of life, of hope. The yellow is faith that the light will break through the darkness. My initial paint application was fast and loose, allowing the paint to run and drip as I tilted the canvas.

"Love"

 

 

mixed media on canvas, 48 x 96 inches, $4610"Love," This work incorporates manmade materials, both found and recycled, organic pieces from my garden, and manipulated materials. I grow a large bed of sunflowers to nourish the bees I raise and feed the many breeds of birds that share my property.  They are a vivid and beautiful source of nourishment, both physical and spiritual.  The bees I raise are fecund symbols of nature’s cyclic ability to survive and to thrive. The cheese cloth is soaked in bees wax, a preservative and source of candle light.  My home was once a cattle farm.  It was established in the early 20th century and those hardy settlers built a sawmill to process the wood from their land to build the barns and granary  that still stand. The blade was recovered from the overgrown ruins of that sawmill.    The shapes in the composition are deliberate symbolic choices.

"Spring"

"Jack Pine"

 

 

mixed media on canvas, including wasp nest in chicken wire, 60 x 48 inches, 2018, $2880

"Jack Pine" combines painting with photography and found objects to express my connection to a glorious old jack pine that sits outside my studio window on a wildflower strewn slope that curves down to one of the original, abandoned barns on my property. I’ve tried to capture the tangled and uncontrolled growth of all the native plants that so many think of as weeds. Their hardiness, like the Jack Pine’s, is a tribute to the tenacity of nature. The wire basket contains shards of natural paper from a wasp nest and of the paper that has been manufactured from the pulp of trees like the old pine. I printed my photo of the old Jack Pine on onion skin paper which I fixed to the canvas. Translucent layers of thin paint create an ephemeral ground. Splashes of heavier paint suggest the flora while the bees wax pays tribute to the transformative role of the bees in pollinating and in creating honey from pollen.

"Winter"

 

 

mixed media on linen, 48 x 60 inches, 2023, $2880

Winter is a dormant time.  Life slows, sleeps, and waits for the warming spring sun before it enters a new cycle of growth and reproduction. It is a quiet time.  Signs of life are few and only the hardiest creatures prevail.  Even in the quietest periods, there is a latent energy waiting to burst out. This cycle of dormancy and growth is one that has lasted for millennia.  Here, even the boulders that were formed in the earliest stages of the earth’s development are still part of the process of change as they  have slowly been shaped and rounded by millions of years of erosion.

"Thumb Tree Print: Chris"

 

 

"Drummers Call," This three part canvas combines references to the male grouse(the drummer), artifacts found on my rural property, and loosely painted symbols. The grouse and heart are references to courage and love as he stands in the forest drumming a mating signal despite all the dangers of attracting predators that incurs. He is a symbol of the resilience of our environment. In the central panel, we see the damage we are inflicting on our world and on ourselves as we disconnect from our relationship to the natural world. There is more reference to nature in the third panel through the application of watery blues and deep foliage greens, a hope of rejuvenation and rebirth and a recognition of the endless cycles of nature.

 

 

mixed media on canvas, 24 x 36 inches, 2021, $1600

"Two Journeys/Two Divers," this piece combines collaged lino prints, photos and other papers to speak to the complexity of the loving relationship that nourishes and supports both parties on their journey together through life.

 

 

photograph and mixed media, 24 x 36 inches, 2021, $800

"Bee," one of my beehives is housed in my greenhouse which is built from recycled barn board. The traces of the bees are seen in the wax on the windows, the blooming squash, all bathed in rich sunlight.