A few years ago, Cullen Washington Jr. was living comfortably in Atlanta, teaching art to kids and selling his abstract figurative paintings to a handful of dedicated patrons. Yet it wasn't quite enough. "I wanted to take my work to another level," he says. He moved north to enroll in the Museum School's Post-Baccalaureate program and experienced a huge psychological shift. "In Atlanta I had a sales-oriented mentality," he says. "I'd been creating work for a specific market. Now my work has become more open-ended. It still has themes, but there are no barriers."
Washington's subject matter and use of materials stem from his experience and heritage as a black American. During his first year at the Museum School, he created a series about slavery that incorporated materials such as coffee, tobacco, and cotton sacks. These days, though, he seeks to transcend the issue of race. "My philosophy now is not to paint about race, but to use a black face to represent notions that are universal," he says. Case in point: his figurative paintings of women in classical poses that look Greco-Roman and Africanesque at the same time.
Washington grew up in Alexandria, Louisiana, always drawing, always receiving art supplies for Christmas gifts. He had his first solo show at the age of nine, in his elementary school's library, where he told a local newspaper reporter that he was considering a career as either a scientist or a car designer. Washington studied graphic design in college and worked as a successful commercial artist for more than a decade in Baton Rouge, then moved to Atlanta to focus on his painting.
It was there he began to teach art: in a charter school, at a Boys & Girls Club, in the Fulton County Juvenile Court system. He saw how kids with behavior problems could change if they found good mentors and got the chance to be in a constructive, collaborative environment. Now a Master of Fine Arts candidate, Washington's goal is to start a school of his own. "I want to help out people who come up behind me," he says. "I'm getting to the point where art is a means to another end."
