In working around current trends of marrying the figurative with the abstract, and experimenting creatively with non-traditional media, Donald Sultan has been able to achieve success and widespread recognition at a relatively young age. Born in Asheville, North Carolina, 1951, Donald Sultan was introduced to the art world by his father, an amateur artist and Jackson Pollock enthusiast. While in high school at Wilbraham Academy in Massachusetts, Sultan tried his hand at acting in small school productions. Following graduation, he returned home to pursue an undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He discovered, while studying acting and theatre production, that his desire for complete control of his artistic expression was incompatible with a career in acting, and he turned to studio art and art history during his final two years.

After receiving his B.F.A. from Chapel Hill, he studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he painted using a variety of non-traditional approaches, including splatter paintings inspired by Jackson Pollock, "thick" paintings of multiple layers in the same color, stripe paintings, and "debris" works (consisting of bottlecaps, cutout shapes and other objects glued onto a support). After moving to New York in 1975, Sultan was inspired to experiment with industrial materials as artistic media while he was supporting himself as a part-time construction worker. Tar, latex, plaster, and vinyl floor tile became more integral to the artist’s creative process, and his paintbrush was sharing time with rollers, knives and a blowtorch.

The subjects for Sultan’s paintings, often drawn from newspaper accounts of industrial disasters, combine documentary sources with highly abstract, emotionally expressive imagery. For Sultan, anything in the world around him has the potential for inclusion in his work. In other pieces he studies, lemons and pears, tulips, fires, explosions, or industrial landscapes.

Artwork

350 ARE SAFE, MANY TRAPPED

New York Times, Saturday March 7, 1987

Headlines and newspaper photos often act as inspiration to Sultan, as was the case in Ferry, Sept.17, 1987. Headlines around the world reported the capsizing of British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise on Friday night at 7:46 P.M., shortly after it left the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. In the April 28^th edition of the New York Times, an investigation into the disaster concluded that the accident was due to negligence, as the ship’s forward doors had never been secured.

From this disaster, and an AP Wire photograph which appeared on the front page of the April 8, 1987 edition of the International Herald Tribune, Sultan has created an image that conveys the violent power of nature in a composition that is reduced almost to the point of complete abstraction. "Ferry accomplishes Sultan’s ambition to encompass many possibilities in the same work, including figuration and abstraction, traditional and untraditional formats and materials, and topicality which becomes history as the work remains and the actual event on which it is based recedes into time."

Creativity and physicality are combined in the execution of these works, which are typical of Sultan’s mature style. The artist uses non-traditional media such as vinyl tile, tar, or butyl rubber (a roofing material) and plaster to build up the surface, and then proceeds to deconstruct it by scraping or gouging into the tar, burning it with a blow torch, or exposing colored portions of the vinyl tile to achieve the desired effect. The grid pattern that has become part of the composition mirrors the construction of the foundation. Sultan works with modular units that measure 4’ x 4’ and can be combined in groups of either two or four. For each module, a 4’ x 4’ wooden stretcher is bolted to a heavy plywood frame of the same dimensions which has been faced with masonite. After gluing vinyl tiles to this support, tar or butyl rubber over gesso is applied and the image is drawn on to it. Sultan does not mechanically project photographs onto the support – they are used only as reference.

Sultan emphasizes the dramatic, and frightening power of such things as natural disasters or catastrophic events, especially in these larger, later pieces. The Ferry is one such piece, pitting man against the power of the sea. This mood is conveyed through the use of a very limited palette, primarily black, and the industrial materials as artistic media. Even the act of creating these large works, primarily physical in nature, suggests his fascination with the physical forces of nature.

Visual Aspects

Color:  Black is the dominant color in this composition. The ship appears to be emerging out of an engulfing darkness. Yellow highlights are scattered sparingly throughout. Standing alone, yellow could be bright and energetic (perhaps associated with more positive images), but here it is caustic, giving a nightmarish quality to an already chaotic and frightening scene.

Lines & Shapes: The emphasis on diagonals in this composition reinforce the unnatural and alarming movements of the vessel. The ship is out of control, listing to its side as it takes on water. It is interesting, however, to contrast these diagonals with the grid formed by the structural support. The horizontal and vertical lines intersecting at the center of the composition provide an equilibrated reference point against which we can gauge the severity of the situation. At the same time, the gridwork also draws attention back to the fact that this is a flat surface, and suddenly, the illusion of a ship is replaced by the abstract qualities of the geometric shapes and textured surfaces on each panel.

Texture:  The sculptural quality of this painting’s surface is one of its most essential elements. By building up the surface and then carving, gouging and shaping it with knives and a blowtorch, the sinking Ferry emerges. The texture of the black also serves to heighten the mood of the entire painting - chunky mounds of tar, in an almost chaotic manner, obscure the scene and engulf the ship in a soupy darkness.

Bibliography

Donald Sultan.  Exhibition catalogue, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1987. SC/Art N6537.S92 A4 1987