Adam Cullen Max Cullen

This portrait of artist and actor Max Cullen was runner-up for the 1999 Archibald Prize.

‘Max is difficult to paint because when he’s acting, that’s when he’s real,’ says his cousin, Adam Cullen. ‘Off-screen you get the feeling that he is only playing at being a real person. But just like everything about Max, you can never be sure. He’s a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll.’

‘He’s hard to pin down – that’s why he’s such a brilliant character actor. He embodies a lot of the contradictions that you typically find in Australian creative types: he pursues pretty pretentious activities such as writing and painting, yet he’s the first one down the pub and the last one to leave. Max is extremely malleable yet he resists any attempt to be shaped. But he has a real Irish head.’

‘I painted him the way he is: complicated, opaque, enigmatic and off-centre.’

Adam Cullen was previously a finalist in the Archibald Prize in 1997 and 1998.