The Artist’s Artist: Cullen Washington in Conversation with Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons

Cullen Washington’s work exudes energy, rawness, and a visceral urban vibe, manifesting a fighting engagement with painting practice, painting history, and painting’s entrapments and luring out into the open the hidden implications of masculinity and race versus the purity of painting semantics. In this interview Washington reflects on the discipline of painting, the challenges he faces as he refines his skills, and his aims as he positions himself to claim a place in the present discourse. The interview covers such topics as his heroes and what they represent, what is important for painting today, science fiction and outer space as a frontier for blackness, Ralph Ellison’s influence on him, and Washington’s artistic and cultural inspirations, as well as his experiences as a graduate student.