“I like the idea of being a bit perverse, of not being predictable”; Charles Cullen tells Brian McAvera, as they discuss the dominant themes in his work over the past 40 years
Brian McAvera: Irish painting is not noted — any more than Irish drama is — for its exploration of sex. Yet you often have a kind of Jesuitical, analytical, psycho-sexual charge coursing through your work. Where does this come from and how far was it shaped by the puritanical attitudes to sex in Ireland in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s?
Charles Cullen: Let’s face it, it is the juice of life. Where would one’s energy come from, if it was missing? It mightn’t come across as overtly erotic (Fig 5). I think it should play a bigger part in what I’m doing. It’s funny. There’s a pair of old platform shoes I found years ago [They are on a pedestal in a corner of the room] and I started using them as a model for drawings and paintings (Fig 9). I wasn’t particularly aware of them having an erotic charge but other people were. There was almost a demand for more! Sex permeates everything, the whole culture now so it doesn’t raise eyebrows any more. It would have before. Remember John Charles McQuaid with his magnifying glass, thinking he could see the mound of Venus… in a Cassidy advert for underwear?
