Out in Country NSW, Artist Lucy Culliton Finds Inspiration on the Farm

Having forged a colourful career, this country NSW-based artist paints what she loves.

Lucy Culliton prefers the company of animals to people. Which is lucky, as she shares her 26-hectare home in the tiny town of Bibbenluke in the NSW Snowy Monaro region with two cows, 50 sheep, 11 goats, 10 pigeons, three ducks, seven horses and three chooks. “Oh, and then there’s the rescued greyhounds. I’ve got five and a couple of dogs that aren’t greyhounds – but I love them anyway,” she says with a chuckle.

Unsurprisingly, all sorts of creatures feature in Culliton’s work, alongside self-portraits, still-life depictions of her home and landscapes that capture bucolic Australian scenes. The drawings, gouaches and oils in her most recent solo exhibition, The Easter Show (March 2024), express her lifelong fascination with the beloved Sydney agricultural event, where she’s been official artist in residence since 2022.

“Ever since I was a little kid, the Royal Easter Show was a highlight better than Christmas,” she says. “When I was a young artist I got a cleaning job at the offices there. I used to finish work then wander around drawing all the animals I could find.”

Culliton’s art has explored broader environmental issues – her 2022 solo exhibition, Cambalong Creek, was the result of years spent capturing the drought-proof pools on her conservationist neighbour’s property – but her up-close studies of fauna have a quiet power. Henry II, a front-on depiction of a majestic ram, shows it staring directly out of the canvas into the eyes of its beholder; in the gouache-on-paper Jersey Cow, the placid subject peers shyly from behind heavy lashes. “I like that connection,” says Culliton. “I want people to see how special, individual and beautiful animals are.”

Exhibited at: King Street Gallery, Sydney; Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney; Australian Parliament House, Canberra; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Studied at: National Art School, Sydney

Major achievement: Culliton is the only woman to be listed as a finalist in the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes in the same year (2016).

Breakthrough moment: “I was not long out of art school when I won the Mosman Art Prize,” says Culliton. “It was a big cash injection and I built a studio with the money. It set me up to transition from just ‘having a go’ at this art thing, to being really serious about it.”

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