Basel Social Club 2025

At Basel Social Club, KIN presented works by Ryan Cullen.

Cullen’s series of still life paintings of plastic water bottles are meditations on the labor of painting. In his recent exhibition Protestantism in Painting, curated by Nelson Beer, the artist reflected on the endless reflections of the medium of painting through the sociological lens of “work” and its relationship to protestantism. In his bottle works, the artist renders light refracted through various brands of bottled water. Light bounces off the plastic medium and creates vibrant refraction. This interplay emphasises how perception, materiality, and light converge in painting, drawing attention to the subtle, layered processes that shape visual experience.

Ryan Cullen’s (*1992 in Boston, USA) practice draws on a variety of cultural and material sources, focusing on the production of images and objects that reflect elements of larger political and ideological structures. In a process where painting and sculpture often intersect, the artist creates works that mirror Western society’s tendencies toward self-destruction. Cullen studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main and at Cooper Union in New York. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions, including at Briefing Room, Brussels; The Meeting, New York; CLEARING, Brooklyn; Etablissement d’en Face, Brussels; Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden; and Portikus, Frankfurt am Main.