Shay Culligan’s FIGURAVOLUTION tracks the evolution of his portrait paintings from figurative realism towards modernist abstraction. It also represents a personal revolution for him as he no longer feels confined within the structures of representational realism.
“I have often been torn by the diverging pulls of classical realism and modernist abstraction, straddling polarized genres in a fusion that continues to evolve,” says the Irish-born Culligan, who came to America in the 1990s to study painting at Massachusetts College of Art (MassArt).
Disillusioned by the focus on minimalism and pure abstraction that persisted in the MassArt painting department, Shay—by then an already technically trained figurative painter—decided to switch his major to graphic design but continued to paint in his spare time.
Shay used to paint traditional portraits and landscapes, but in 2002 he transitioned over to serigraphy, silkscreen printing his photos and collages onto various media, exhibiting such work in Ireland, London, the Netherlands, Canada, and throughout America. After 12 years in the serigraph medium he transitioned back to painting in oil, with his Russian wife Marina featuring prominently in his portraiture as his model and muse. Lately Shay has been flirting with abstraction in various degrees, without totally abandoning proportionality or figurativism. FIGURAVOLUTION is the culmination of several years of experimentation in styles, chronologically transitioning from realism to abstraction.
“Modern life is unpredictable and chaotic, the gatekeepers of cultural and moral acceptability have been obliterated by modern technologies such as the internet, social media, and artificial intelligence,” he maintains. “Nobody knows what the future holds for our globalized society and civilization as a whole, so my expectation is to evolve to a point where my paintings become a puzzlement not just to the viewing public, but also to myself as an artist, whist I continue to develop my ability to capture physical beauty on canvas.”
Shay Culligan at shaymultimedia at yahoo.com, and at www.seamas.com.