November 2022 Unicorn Of The Month: Mike Cullen

Like the previous months artist, Mike is someone I met via Netvvrk, which if you don't know about, you should! Go visit the website to learn more. With that being said, let's get into the work of Mike Cullen.  

1. Tell me about you as a person. The name in which you prefer to go by. Where are you based? What are your origins, where are you from, etc.?

I’m originally from Long Island, New York. I now make my home in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn with my wife and two cats. I was in high school when I realized I wanted to spend my life in photography. So I went to a state college that had a decent photo program and ended up with a BA in English. And then, because I wasn’t far enough in debt, I took a few photo courses at RIT for a time. 

For a variety of reasons I went off course for the next 12 years. I marched through a series of jobs that had nothing to do with photography, from air conditioner repair to a stint at Ticketmaster. It wasn’t until I did some soul searching and reorganized my priorities that I went back to RIT for more photo courses and landed a job as a photo researcher. I realized I really liked to look at pictures all day. That job led to another and another. Now I’m a photo editor for a major college textbook publisher.

Through all of this, I kept taking photos. It wasn’t until fairly recently (10-ish years ago) that I started to take my photography seriously in terms of self-expression. I started taking a lot of photos that were purposely blurry and impressionistic. I worked this vein for a few years before being diagnosed with depression, and that’s when the penny dropped: all the out of focus, lonely, usually people-less photos I had been taking were outward expressions of my depression and anxiety. I ended up putting a lot of these photos into a show at Soho Photo Gallery and called it the Black Dog Series. (Winston Churchill referred to his bouts with depression as “visits from the black dog”.)

I’ve gotten a lot of help since then, and my photography has gone in another direction: sharp and super-saturated color. For the past year or two, I’ve headed over to local parks and made tiny studies in nature, sometimes with mysterious sculptures I create on the spot. I’m not sure where the series is leading, but I’m enjoying the journey.

2. How long have you been practicing art professionally, when did you consider yourself a real artist?

You know, even after a few shows in the Soho Photo Gallery (NYC’s largest co-op photo gallery), it wasn’t until this year I’ve felt comfortable calling myself an artist. Heck, I’ve even gone so far as to get myself an art web address: mikecullen.art!

3. Did you go to art school? Tell me about your training, formal and informal.

The closest I got to a real art school were the classes I took at Rochester Institute of Technology and some assorted classes at SVA and NYU. So I’ve picked up a lot on my own, or as a smart person once said, Sometimes the best teacher is a library card.

4. What is the medium(s) that you prefer to work in and tell why? 

I don’t remember who said it first but I like the quote “I photograph because it’s faster than painting."

5.Who are some of your art inspirations? What are some of your non-art inspirations?

Photo inspirations: Walker Evans and the FSA photographers. William Eggleston, Gregory Crewdson, Lori Nix. Just discovered Valeri Larko! And of course Ansel. 

Artists: Rothko, JMW Turner, Edward Hopper, Frank Stella. And love reading anything Jerry Saltz has to say!

6. When do you know when a work is finished?

The blessing and curse of Adobe Lightroom! You can go back and undo/redo any adjustments you’ve made to a photo. Frequently I’ll call a photo Done only to go back and tweak it again. And again. The only true was to say it’s finished is to print it, frame it, and put it on the wall!

7. Tell me about your process when working. Do you listen to music or do any rituals to get yourself ready to make art?

My process: On Monday Wednesday and Friday I’m up and out by 7am to shoot in a nearby park. I shoot for an hour or so, then come home and upload my work and start doing first edits. By then it’s time to start my day job(thanks, COVID, for making me a 100% remote worker!), but I’ll keep tinkering with the photos on my phone throughout the day.

I’ll usually post a few shots that may have promise on Insta a day or two later. 

8. What are the meanings and the concepts behind this particular body of work?

My current work revolves around oddness and mystery, the feeling you get when you hear a story about, say UFOs or Bigfoot. For me, there’s always a moment where a sense of wonder is activated in my mind, where I find myself thinking How is that possible? That’s the feeling I’m trying to conjure in my viewer’s minds.

9.What do you want viewers to take away from your work?

There is mystery and wonder all around us. As Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

10.What are your biggest goals as a visual artist? And what has been your proudest moment professionally?

I want to keep on working until I can’t anymore, and maybe sell a few prints while I’m at it. Being repped by a few galleries would be neat, too!

My proudest moment was submitting my portfolio to become a member of the Soho Photo Gallery and being accepted. It was very personal work and having it validated by very smart people was a huge boost. 

For more of Mike's work, visit his Website and stalk/follow his Instagram.