ABOUT THE ARTIST
Donald Sultan is a painter, printmaker, and sculptor known for large-scale, multi-media compositions of fruit, flowers, dominoes, playing cards, and other simple forms that are both representational and abstract. His first linoleum paintings of the 1970s were inspired by the unconventional "found objects" used in the Arte Povera modern art movement in Europe and by installation artists in New York. Solo exhibits of his work have appeared in museums and galleries from the Guggenheim, Metropolitan, and Whitney in New York, to Tate Modern in London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. Sultan typically works on Masonite covered with vinyl floor tiles instead of canvas. He cuts shapes into the vinyl, fills in the cutout space with plaster or tar, and then paints over the foundation. His images are weighty, providing equal emphasis on negative and positive spaces.
A native of Asheville, N.C., where he was recognized with the 2010 North Carolina Award, the highest award a state can bestow on a civilian, Sultan has lived in New York City since 1977. A 1980-81 NEA Visual Arts Fellowship recipient, he has a bachelor of fine arts degree from UNC-Chapel Hill, and a master of fine arts from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago.