Ryan Cullen ^(BE)

Ryan Cullen (b. 1992) is an artist working in Brussels. In his work he examines new symbolic economies emerging from a peaking extractive capitalism and its resultant annihilations. These new economies are not necessarily financial in nature, they are symbolic markets which trade in futures and derivatives of paranoia, death, identity, love, anti-sociality, body parts, and a decaying century-old psychoanalytic concept of desire. Pulling from disparate historical, cultural, and material sources, Cullen’s practice centers around the production of images and objects which exhibit homologous elements of larger political and ideological structures. Through a process which often intersects painting and sculpture, the artist creates images which mirror western society’s tendencies toward auto-annihilation.

Cullen studied at the Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, and The Cooper Union, New York. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at:Michiel Simons Gallery, Amsterdam; Musée Boverie, Liège; Situations gallery, New York; The Meeting, New York; CLEARING, Brooklyn; Etablissement d’en Face, Brussels; Studio Picknick, Berlin; Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, among others.