Donald Sultan
"Aqua Trumpet" 2012
Donald K. Sultan (born 1951) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, particularly well-known for large-scale still life paintings and the use of industrial materials such as tar, enamel, spackle and vinyl tiles. He has been exhibiting internationally in prominent museums and galleries, and his works are included in important museum collections all over the globe. Sultan is the recipient of numerous honours and awards for his artistic achievements.
As a draftsman, Sultan remains devoted to his imagery of nature. His silhouetted charcoal drawings on paper, as well as his compositions in colour conte crayon and flock, often explore the forms of fruits and flowers, resulting in largely monochromatic and prominent images. His flowers float and cluster together, pushing the edges of the paper and creating images that are bold and at times appear erotic and surreal. “I have been using flower imagery for 40 years,” he says, “only because in the 1970s, I started to see the urban environment as a source for new growth. At the time, no one in my generation was painting flowers; now, of course, everyone is.
