about
Austin Cullen is a Houston based photographer and printmaker. He received his BFA from Stephen F. Austin State University in 2019, and his MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2022. As a graduate student at UNL, Austin worked as a gallery assistant in the Eisentrager Howard Gallery, and as a Graduate Instructor of Record. He currently works as a Showroom Coordinator at Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing. His current project explores museum natural displays and the natural world, and how they influence and affect one another. This project stems from his long-standing interest in natural history museums and the history of display. Austin grew up visiting natural history museums regularly, he's always been fascinated by the extravagant ways museums framed the American landscape. Dramatic dioramas, interactive virtual experiences, and miniaturized landscapes all act as windows into the natural world. While this framing acts as a guide for reading and understanding nature, the same frame can be analyzed to understand the complex and ever-changing relationship between people and land. For this project he has worked closely with University of Nebraska-Lincoln Natural History Museum , Kansas University Natural History Museum, Hastings Museum, and several other notable Natural History Museums. Austin's work has been included in numerous venues including the Houston Center for Photography, Filter Photo, and the Midwest Center for Photography. He has also had his work exhibited in online spaces like Urbanautica: Ethical Shifts in Photography (2021), Undisclosed Resource (2021), and Dohdo Magazine.
