Paul Cullen is a senior lecturer at AUT University Auckland. Born in Te Awamutu in 1949, he graduated with the BSc from the University of Auckland in 1971, before going on to study at the Ilam School of Fine Arts, Canterbury University, Christchurch and completing a Diploma of Fine Arts with Honours in Sculpture. He completed an MFA (1st Class Hons) at the University of Auckland in 2000 and a Doctorate of Fine Arts in 2007.

Since holding his first solo exhibition in 1975 at the Centre Gallery, Christchurch Cullen has exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Including:

2009 - Weather Stations Headlands Waiheke Island.
2009 - Situations, Peloton Gallery, Sydney.

2008 - Models, Methods & Assumptions. Peloton Gallery, Sydney.

2007- Falsework, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Stockholm Falsework, HAP Projects Stockholm, Sweden.
2007- Models Whangarei Art Museum. Lost
2007 - Trust Waikato Art Awards, Waikato Art Museum.

2006 - The Orange Theory, te tuhi Pakuranga, Auckland. The Orange Theory.Trust Waikato Art Awards, Waikato Art Museum.

2005 - Meeting Roland Barthes. Signal Gallery, Hamilton.
2005 - Logic of Sense. Winston Window project Amsterdam
2005 - Small Sculptures. 64zero3 Gallery Christchurch.
2005 - Second Problem (installation). Blue Oyster Gallery Dunedin.

2004 - Proposal for an unrelated site, Christchurch Art Gallery.
2004 - Remember NZ at the 26th Sao Paulo Bienal, Brazil. Curator Tobias Berger.
2004 - Nine Dragons, the International Environmental Art Symposium, Chung-Buk, Korea.

2003 - Inn-House – on the fringe of heaven, group exhibition, Lopdell House Gallery, Waitakere City.
2003 - Nine Dragons, the International Environmental Art Symposium, Chung-Buk, Korea.

1999 - Box Project a touring exhibition at the Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham, Turnpike Gallery Manchester, and the Museum of Installation, London.

1996 - Star Projects, Vrieshuis Amerika, Amsterdam, and Discovery of Oxygen, at Artspace, Auckland.

1993 - Science (inconclusive evidence)- Installation, Centre for Contemporary Art, Hamilton.

1987 - Sub(urban) an installation, Wellington City Art Gallery.

1986 - Aspects of Recent New Zealand Art: Sculpture 1 at the Auckland City Art Gallery.

1978 - Mildura Sculpture Triennial, Victoria, Australia.

Since first entering the Hansells Sculpture Awards, Cullen has been a finalist in many major national art awards and has been the recipient of grants from both the Arts Council and the Goethe Institut enabling him to travel and research sculpture overseas. In 1996 he was the recipient of the Moet et Chandon Artist fellowship to Avize, France. In 2002, MIT Research grant enabled him to attend Documenta 11 in Kassel, and Manifesta 4 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

He has participated in various outdoor sculpture projects, including in 1999 when he was invited by the then Robert McDougall Art Gallery to participate in Sculpture in the Gardens. This was a project where three invited artists installed temporary site-specific works in the Christchurch Botanical Gardens. Also in 1999 St Peter’s College, Auckland, commissioned Passage for their chapel site. Cullen was selected to take part in the first Sculpture on the Gulf, 2003, on Waiheke Island and the recent 2009 Headlands exhibition.

He has also been selected to be a Judge of the NZILA Biennial National Landscape Awards.

In 2006 Dilana Rugs invited Cullen to design for their limited edition handmade range; the resulting rugs have been exhibited in France and featured in major interior design focus magazines.