Maggie Cullen

Description

Untitled I is one of a series of three sculptures in which Maggie Cullen strove to devise a technology to meet an aesthetic she required of her chosen material. The process became a two-year project. She writes, 'The sculpture is made from acrylic sheet which has been sanded to create a surface of cuts which attract the surrounding light and radiate it back to the viewer. This diffusion of light and subsequent appearance of weightlessness attracted me to the material.' Her inspiration for the sculptures, she claims, ' . . . came from a magical afternoon spent in the Alhambra, Granada in 1990,' and was the first time she had attempted to convey 'the emotional impact of a defining moment; a moment of aesthetic intensity and joy.'

The sculptures marked a departure from her previous work in which Cullen used found and cast objects. Her interest in objects which were functional as well as having beauty in their form and design influenced her work more directly than it does now. Her early training as a ceramicist has also informed her work and she developed a keen sense of form and an eye for the openings that pots naturally have. The outline of Untitled I may be seen as that of a container although the series of acrylic sheets which give rythm to the sculpture defy that notion in the literal sense. They may be read as strata through the form, even though the original shape would have been defined by space within a skin. She writes, 'I am often reminded of Heidegger's parable of the jug where it is the void within and not the material which determines the form of the vessel.'

The intensity of light that Cullen has achieved in this sculpture serves to disguise certain aspects of its construction, which adds a sense of mystery to the undeniable beauty of the object.