Ces McCully is an Australian contemporary artist based in the south of France. Working across painting and text, her practice explores identity, female relationships and the ways personal experience intersects with cultural and religious imagery.
Ces’s work is defined by a pared-back visual language of geometric forms, vivid colour and recurring motifs. Her earlier text-based works use stylised typography to communicate intimate, often candid thoughts, while her more recent paintings have developed a distinctly figurative and folk-inspired character. Block-like figures, flattened perspectives and patterned backgrounds create scenes that feel familiar yet slightly surreal, drawing on influences ranging from Byzantine iconography and folklore to early video game graphics and woven textiles.
Negative space and the relationship between simple forms are central to her compositions. Repeated symbols, including the red tulip, introduce personal and emotional associations, evoking themes of passion, renewal and femininity. Her restrained use of form and colour gives the paintings a quiet, meditative quality, while the tension between their simplicity and symbolic content leaves room for multiple readings.
Since moving to the south of France in 2019, McCully has developed a particular interest in religious imagery and its relationship to contemporary ideas of gender. Surrounded by churches, cathedrals and Catholic symbols, she began to revisit the role of religion in shaping ideas of femininity, identity and social relationships. These references now form an important part of her visual vocabulary, reinterpreted through a distinctly contemporary perspective.
Ces’s work has been exhibited internationally over the past five years, including solo exhibitions at Breach, Miami; Rhodes Contemporary Art, London; and Piermarq, Australia. Her work has also been featured in publications including Lula Magazine, QP Magazine, Gael Magazine, Real Living and Inside Out.