BE THEREColors, Smoke and WarPresented by Mary Ryan Gallery February 16, 2007- March 31, 2007Reception: February 17, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pmDonald SultanMary Ryan Gallery is pleased to announce for its inaugural exhibition at the new gallery space located at 527 West 26th Street, an exhibition of new drawings and recently published prints by Donald Sultan. The show includes a series of conte crayon drawings of Mimosas-predominantly in greens and blacks with repetitive white geometric circles forming blossoms. Many are done with wisps of graphite lines with accents of blues to suggest sky coming through the branches. In the Japanese Pine drawings, heavily pigmented green circles form clusters along branches. In both imagery, lyrical lines (leaves/branches) are grounded by solid circles. Donald Sultan, one of the best known artists who continues the age-old still-life genre, infuses this tradition with a contemporary sensibility all his own: the deconstruction of the subjects to basic forms and new materials to create both flatness and depth. The gallery unveils a new publication, 12 Colors (2007), a set of 12 silkscreened poppies. Sultan’s iconic poppies are presented in an array of hues (reds, blues, greens, yellows, etc). The enamel-like surface of the poppies actually “pops” out from the textured and tar-like black background which was created using 9 layers of color. Each individual poppy is printed on a 25 x 20 ½” sheet and collectively they form a grid measuring 75 x 82”. Another new publication is Mimosas, Oct. 5, 2006 an etching, aquatint and silkscreen. This is the only print related to the Mimosa drawings. The war series entitled, The Brutal Unsentimental Landscape were first conceived in response to the first bombing of Dubrovnik, Croatia back in 1994 which started what the artist calls the “disillusionment of Eastern Europe.” These five images were inspired by television footage and news photographs that were widely disseminated to show the conflicts in the Europe and the Middle East. They are rendered in an Impressionist style that can superficially seem picturesque; yet the images embedded in this suite show the brutality of landscape: pollution, industrial wasteland, refugees, and dead soldiers against the burning backdrop of a humvee. Shown with this series are recent digital photographic prints of Smoke Rings measuring 50 x 40” and 34 x 34”. *This is the fourth solo show of Donald Sultan at Mary Ryan Gallery.
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