Dylan Culhane was born in 1981 in South Africa and now works and lives in Cape Town. Culhane studied at University of Cape Town (BA Film, Media & Visual Studies, 2001, MA Media Theory & Practice 2010) and at AFDA, South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance (BA Motion Picture Medium, 2004).
In an age where the magic of photography is undeniably taken for granted, Dylan Culhane aims to challenge the tendency to equate photography with realism. His work features meticulous, layering of organic and architectural elements as multiple exposures on celluloid in the way a painter might build up brush-strokes of oil upon canvas. Drawing on a variety of graphic influences including MC Escher, Japanese sumi-e painting and OpArt, Culhane's work is distinctive in that wherever possible he resists the lure of digital manipulation, using oft-forgotten in-camera techniques to create provocative images more akin to illustration, painting, or digital design than photography. Steering clear of any single subject opens up the final product to an array of interpretations.
He has exhibited internationally including solo photography shows Symbiosis at The Premises Gallery, Johannesburg (2008), Photoklecksography at Exposure Gallery, Cape Town (2008), Driven to Abstraction at Exposure Gallery, Cape Town (2007). His paintings have been exhibited at Galerie Plett, Zeist, The Netherlands (2000), and Fresh at Hout Bay Gallery, Cape Town (1999). Culhane was previously editor of VICE magazine South Africa and currently curates at MUSEUM Photographic Art Gallery in Cape Town.