Image: Weng Contemporary, Zug
Weng Contemporary has published ‘Donald Sultan: The Shape of Things’, a feature on the American artist’s transformation of familiar subjects—including poppies, tulips and mimosa—into simplified silhouettes, saturated fields of colour and elemental forms. The Zug-based organisation’s presentation focuses on Sultan’s sustained movement between figuration and abstraction rather than announcing a new exhibition or event.
Sultan, born in 1951, rose to prominence in New York in the late 1970s as part of the “New Image” movement. According to Weng Contemporary’s artist material, his practice has repeatedly revisited still-life subjects such as lemons, flowers, fruit and playing cards. Although his work is often classified as still life or landscape, Sultan has described it as fundamentally abstract, with recognisable imagery used as a starting point for formal investigation.
A central concern of the feature is the physical character of Sultan’s work. Rather than relying solely on conventional painting materials, he developed an approach incorporating linoleum, roofing tar, spackle, enamel and flocking, among other substances. His paintings can be constructed, cut, filled and sanded as much as painted, creating a contrast between the weight and permanence suggested by industrial materials and the fragility of the organic forms they depict.
That contrast is also present in the works highlighted by Weng Contemporary. ‘Black and Red, Feb. 15, 2012’ is a colour silkscreen using enamel inks, flocking and a tar-like texture on two-ply museum board. Red flowers appear against a black ground, translating into print the textural qualities associated with Sultan’s paintings. ‘Lantern Flowers Red, Feb 17, 2012’ similarly uses enamel inks and a tar-like surface on four-ply museum board to reduce floral imagery to a sharply schematic composition.
The feature also discusses ‘White Tulips and Vase, Feb 25, 2014’, a silkscreen with enamel inks and tar-like texture on four-ply museum board. In the work, the still-life subject is reduced to its essential shapes, retaining enough information to remain legible while resisting naturalistic description. Weng Contemporary’s pages for the work and for ‘Black and Red’ describe both pieces as part of Sultan’s Flower series, where still-life imagery remains simultaneously abstract and representational.
In the ‘Big Poppies’ portfolio from 2014, enlarged blossoms occupy the paper as geometric structures: petals become circles and stems become lines. Sultan’s 2015 sculptures ‘Red Poppies’ and ‘Blue Poppies’ extend the process from image to object, translating the natural subject into solid, simplified forms. Other works listed in the artist presentation include ‘Yellow Mimosa, July 23, 2015’, ‘Silver Lantern Flowers, May 5, 2014’ and ‘Black Tulips and Vase, Feb 26, 2014’. Weng Contemporary invites readers to enquire about and learn more about Sultan’s works through its collection and artist platform.
