Altoon Sultan’s big little paintings

Contributed by Katy Crowe / The quiet revelation in Altoon Sultan’s current show at Chris Sharp Gallery in Los Angeles is that small can be big. The paintings are compact and jewel-like. They also embody detailed images of large farm implements and machinery, and resonate, in a calm but assertive way, the power wielded by these massive machines. She uses egg tempera on stretched calfskin parchment over panels, rendering beautiful surfaces and glowing colors that overwhelm any sense of preciousness. The matte surfaces and tender intimacy of the painted objects invite the viewer to forget what they are as they veer into abstraction, though they never completely depart from representation. Sultan’s more recent investigations into abstraction are not included here, but it is apparent that she has resolved to interpret objects, landscapes and non-objective forms with traditional materials that dictate a labor-intensive approach. 

The show is afforded ample space across three rooms and consists of ten paintings, the largest of which is only 14 x 9 inches. They are painted from photographs, which have been cropped to become details. The colors used are very likely those of the referenced farm vehicles and tools, yet the tempera mutes and softens their shiny painted surfaces. The slow process of painting in that medium, layering colors to reach the desired opacity, lends a meditative quality to the works, suggesting Tantra painting.

All of Sultan’s works seem to depict sunny summer light. The sky, when it appears, is blue and cloudless, formed by the object rather visited from the heavens. The sun could be shining on any farm in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, where Sultan lives, as well as Iowa, California’s central valley, or for that matter France. The machinery is ubiquitous to farms, and it speaks to the universal production of and need for food, whether by way of industrial farming methods or small-scale organic ones.

The luminous Mint Green and Yellow defies immediate recognition. The forms could be architectural and the geometry hints at spatial depth, yet you know what you are looking at is a machine. Around is identifiable as some kind of tilling tool but from a slightly different perspective also reads as abstract. The close-up framing changes the visual context, with shapes cutting diagonally across the lower left corner of the panel, stacked round forms sliding out of the picture plane on the right, and what appears a serrated blade in the middle. No motion is imparted to these images; they are very still. 

Tall Orange too refers to an object that eludes precise identification but still tracks as a machine or implement. Here you feel the sun and the cloudless sky above. The uncertainty of exactly what is depicted more intriguing than confounding. Complementary orange and blue complicate the descriptive function of the line while shadows make it seem as though you are looking up at the image when in fact the interface is straight-on. In Two Arches, yellow and blue vibrate, and, although shadows under the arches indicate dimension, the two colors have equal weight. The subject of Red Circle is more recognizable but still at some abstract remove. Patterned squares of sunlight under the red horizontal bar recede along with circular blades or claws presumably for tilling. 

Sultan’s compositions are asymmetric – so, of course, is the real word – but they are never off-balance. Her engagement with the materials translates into her painting beautifully. Patience and attention are required for working in egg tempera, and the paintings have a compatibly timeless quality. Her works in other materials no doubt share these characteristics. With luck, they too will someday surface in Los Angeles.

“Altoon Sultan: New Paintings,” Chris Sharp Gallery, 4650 W. Washington Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA. Through February 28, 2024.

About the author: Katy Crowe is a Los Angeles-based painter, working in oil and watercolor whose last solo show was in 2022 at As Is Gallery in LA.