What Critics Said

Born and educated in Dublin, Derek Culley is essentially a Celtic Artist mainly self taught and intuitive in approach. As a young man his visual imagination was stimulated by early Celtic stone carvings on exhibition at the National Museum in Dublin.

Their monumental presence and symbolic mystery had a profound and lasting effect on him, echoed later when he discovered American painting, in Motherwells' "Elegy to The Spanish Republic " series. Also, on seeing the work of Irish painters such as G. Dillon, S. O'Colmain, A. Armstrong and C. Middleton certainly influenced Culley and awakened in him the desire and ambition to be a painter, confirmed on visits to the David Hendricks Gallery in Dublin where he saw much of Cecil Kings' work which he greatly admired. Interestingly, Culley had, in his late teens been introduced to Edmund Burkes eighteenth century treatise, "Enquiry into Ideas of The Sublime and Beautiful" by friends who had, Like Burke before them, studied at Trinity College, Dublin. Though Culley admits to having difficulty with aesthetic theories, it did help him to understand artists that he instinctively admired, especially as the aforementioned Americans had been influenced by Burkes "Enquiry".

For him , Burkes distinction between "a clear expression" and "a strong expression", claiming "the former regards the understanding, the latter belongs to the passions, the one describes a thing as it is, the other describes it as it is felt" , helped him to understand his artistic identity and partly influenced the future direction of his work. Since early days when he did pavement drawings in chalk and pastels, Culley's work has been characterised more by that "strong expression" than a "clear expression" as Burke called it. It is understandable that he should feel an affinity with artists of the Northern European tradition as well as those of the New York School of the Forties and Fifties.Artists such as Munch, Ensor and Roualt are important influences as are contemporary artists such as Alan Davie. Celtic imagery and associations recur constantly in Culley 's paintings, and some can be traced to the manuscripts produced by the early Celtic monks, particularly the Book of Kells.

Often these manuscripts show the Cross composed of rich lacework of intertwined dragons or serpents, standing against or buried amongst background of even more complicated pattern, the human figure appears as strange patterns made of human forms looking much like primitive idols. In Culley's painting over the last five years there exists strong connections with such imagery though he uses strong chiaroscuro , heavy impasto , vigorous brushwork and direct expressive handling, the work is similar in the figure ground ambiguity and symbolic narrative. They are mysterious, illusive, and often haunting. Though he has considerable knowledge and expertise in the use of computers and information technology, Culley deliberately shuns any notion of linking art and technology. His roots are in the primitive and symbolic and it is significant that he chooses as his principal means of expression one of the most traditional and direct means of communication known to man.

Mel Gordon
London

Five Years of Culley - The RHK

Born and educated in Dublin , Derek Culley now lives in England but he is currently showing his paintings at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham under the banner of "Five Years of Culley". As the titles of these indicate they are usually concerned with large issues - 'Altar State', "The Patriot" and "Beyond the Banana Republic" are some - and the language he uses for these is basically that of Abstract Expressionism in its various manifestations through Pollock and De Kooning, adding to the mix some references to Celtic and other sources.

This leads to a deal of cross -references, and indeed even some unresolved turmoil in his canvasses, so that a painting of a flower can look very like another of the Crucifixion on the opposite wall. But if his language is a complex one, it is also one he has mastered and can on occasion use for his considerable expressive purposes. Since it is a manner which relies on a degree of impulse, his subjects can remain embedded in a welter of signs and marks. But when everything gels, the results have considerable imaginative impact and impressive power.

Desmond Macavock
The Irish Times 1989

There used to be a class of Irish farmer called a strong farmer. To qualify for this status the farmer had to have at least a hundred head of cattle and a son in the Church. I presume that this was evidence of ambition. Edmund Burke speaks of an artist with strong expression as distinct from clear expression. The former pertains to the passions, the latter to the understanding.

On this distinction Derek Culley would be a strong painter. He has a strong passion for strong colours and bold forms. And, if we combine this with the ambition that characterizes a strong farmer, we have a strong painter, strong in passion rather than clarity. Not that Culley 's paintings are not clear in the sense of coherent, even if a few may fall short in this respect. It is that they are not the painting of an intellectual , but rather of a man of strong feeling for his medium, colour, strong shapes and the material of paint. Ironically, Culley 's self-confessed intention in painting is what he calls the 'cult of signs'. True enough what we would call signs crop up from time to time.

In 'Cum' (1992), which I find both powerful and satisfying to the eye, there are crosses, an arrow what looks like the letter 'Z' and possibly a prohibition sign and what looks like a magnifying glass. But these are not signs in the strict sense. That is, they do not signify anything. They are just marks that in another context would have signification. Of course they cannot shed their common significance, even if Culley is using them merely as marks and shapes without giving significance to their signification. For him they are just part of a composition like any other shape that is not given a conventional signification. But yet, as I have said, they cannot shed their signifying function entirely. The juxtaposition of a cross suggestive of the Cross of Lorraine (or even of a bomber) , an arrow and the letter 'Z' may not have an ulterior significance, but they cannot shed their ordinary significance. At this point one might be tempted to appeal to an unconscious or subconscious intention.

One might want to say that Culley's psyche is saying something that he is not fully aware of: Personally I would vigorously resist this suggestion. And I am sure Burke would have done so too. In my opinion, he would have seen Culley as a passionate painter, obsessed with colours and shapes rather than messages. The most (speaking for myself) I would be prepared to concede is that Culley is happy to trade on the ambiguity of his 'signs', And why not ? Their significance, even if it idling, floats over the pictures and enriches them with an apparent mysterious significance. After all, art is, in the end, as Kant says, the freeplay of the imagination and understanding and all the more stimulating to both for that. However it is not all free play, if play at all. I am thinking of 'Moonchild: 'Witness: 'Fortune Line: and above all 'Window for Sarajevo: I shall concentrate on the last. There are signs (crosses, 'magnifying glasses: ‘no entry' signs plastered all over the place, but the overall impression, with the heavy use of 'leading: suggests just what the title states, a stained glass window. A somber one, in which darkness predominates over light, though colour breaks through in parts. Hope? Where as I write (November, 1993) is there hope? But Derek is surely right. There must be light. Even the most barbaric war ended in 1918, after, surprisingly, only four years. To translate this into stained glass might be a task, but I think someone could manage it.

Culley's very serious works, which I have mentioned, would be easily translatable into stained glass, and would, I suggest, be a fit testimony of affectionate remembrance to the victims of mindless killing.In a sense Derek is not saying anything. He is not using signs to symbolize anything. But he is conveying strongly felt feeling through forms, some of which may be used as signs, and these feelings should be realized in endurable glass with strong leading. Here, if ever, is a strong artist.

Cyril Barrett
Campion Hall - Oxford

Celtic Vision Exhibition in Cork

"CELTIC VISION" is an important exhibition, exploring a common tradition in painters of seven European countries, and organised originally in Spain. Ireland is more generously represented than any other country, yet the exhibition is to visit only Cork, where it is presently showing at the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery. Whether much emerges of how this Celticness affects visual imagery is another matter. There is a general tendency to try for a direct impact, with an illusiveness of meaning: though this might apply to many other traditions. Artists like Michael Sandle and Derek Culley employ Celtic imagery in their work. Culley is Irish, and with his compatriots stands out well in the whole display.

Hilary Pyle
The Irish Times 1986