JIM MCCULLOUGH - “GLUE FACTORY” BOOK

I lived with Jim in his time as an undertaker. He’d work 6pm til 6am. I’d catch him on my way out to work in the morning. He’d be wired and completely shellshocked from everything he’d seen the night before - gathering pieces of bodies from train suicides, the indescribable stench of finding a dead body in a hoarders house that no one knew was there. We lived at the intersection of Gilbert & Murray Rd in Preston - an arterial thoroughfare for giant trucks and masses of traffic. Along with a tram stop on our doorstep to boot. All he wanted was sleep and he couldn’t usually get it. I think it sent him a little mad, but he loved it. He found pride in doing work that no one else wanted to. This was all a while ago now, and he hasn’t talked about his experience much - equally for mental and legal reasons. This collection of paintings represents his first public reckoning with what he saw. “I did this job for 5 years. At the time I didn’t really know how to make paintings about what I was seeing. Many years later and no longer working in the field, I’ve had time to reflect on my experiences… The 47 scenarios depict scenes of situations before I arrived to do my part.”

Any time narration comes into play, we must ask that dreadful question about "truth". Who does it belong to? What about the role of poetic license, artistic liberties, tall tales, pork pies, a dash of imagination here or a sprinkling of embellishment there? Can you afford to take the audience for a ride? (Can you afford not to?) Jim's works inside Glue Factory deal with these notions playfully and dutifully.

Sculpting forms with loose strokes and maximizing expression through minimal spectrums of colour is what McCullough excels at. The ability to jump between muted and loud is a strength he employs judiciously. Being a subject matter that is so heavy and real, sometimes it's helpful to have a teaspoon of sugar to swallow it down. Sometimes you're staring at a cheap shag carpet, homeground of narcotic habits. Sometimes you’re looking at a road, a lighthouse, a train platform, or a cheap local shop. Are they selling smack from a room out the back or do they just sell magazines and ice creams? I wonder if Jim asked those same questions. He is certainly aware that Australiana is a fascinating web where grit and ugliness is only a hop, skip and a jump away from the sun kissed idyllicism of a Little Aths carnival. The guy who dresses up as Santa Claus sporting boardies to dole out prezzies to children around Christmas might just be the same bloke who buried a fella out bush. Buzzing flies are ubiquitous in this land, whether it’s a gang of them following you around in the backyard or an even bigger gang of them rocking up to the body before Jim, and the recurring character of ‘Fly’ spread throughout the book is genius.

But it is not all doom and gloom. The colourful spectrum of human life and experience is well represented in Glue Factory with works like ‘Hells Angels’ and ‘The Smoker’ exuding a cool bravado that makes you wanna be them while ‘Baby Bath’ and ‘Swimming’ are tender beyond words. It is no small feat to have struck so many powerful and wonderfully human nerves in this collection of work. Jim’s combinations of palette and technique are amongst his strongest to date, each painting breathing the truth (whether the “real” truth or just his truth) to life and to art.

A picture tells a thousand words and I've nearly reached my word count. This wonderful book is a glimpse into life starting at the end and working backwards, an immense accomplishment for an artist making their name one worth keeping an eye on.