Ces McCully

b. Melbourne, Australia, 1982

Ces McCully is a contemporary Australian artist based in Southern France who draws on a broad range of influences, including Byzantine art, folklore, early video game graphics, social media, and typography. Oscillating between bold text-based works and abstract figurative scenes, McCully’s work embraces simultaneous attitudes of worship and irreverence.

McCully’s textual works explore our increasingly digital culture of curated content. She floods her compositions with brightly painted phrases which read both as diaristic notations and AI generated vocabulary. Alternatively records of private thoughts or pulsating large-scale broadcasts, McCully’s paintings speak to the social pressure to cultivate the online self and the oversaturated digital landscape.

McCully’s early exposure to the arts was defined by a more tactile approach, whether it was witnessing the costume and set design in dance theatres, or at home where her mother knitted, sewed, and made quilts. She began weaving in 2015 and encountered a nurturing element to the laborious process of working with her hands to create something. Her painted compositions—such as her figural works or mask-like Monster series—were increasingly defined by the soft geometric patterning of tapestries or quilts.

Ces McCully completed her Bachelor of Contemporary Arts at Deakin University in 2005. Her works have since been exhibited internationally and are held in the collection of the Moco Museum, Amsterdam.