Biography
Donald Cole was born in New York City and received a BS from Bucknell University and an MFA from the University of Iowa. His work has been exhibited in New York at 55 Mercer Gallery, French & Co., the Nancy Hoffman Gallery and the Frank Marino Gallery. Since living on Vashon Island, WA he has shown at the Foster/White Gallery, the Jeffrey Moose Gallery and the ArtXchange Gallery in Seattle, two Tacoma Art Museum biennials and Gallery 070 on Vashon. He has work in a number of private and public collections, including the Portland Art Museum, the Worcester Art Museum, and the ARCO Center for the Visual Arts, Los Angeles. Current work can be viewed at ArtXchange, Seattle and at his Vashon Island studio.
Artist Statement
The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art were the most interesting and exciting places to be when I was growing up in New York City. Military experience in Korea and Japan intensified my deep feelings against war and prejudice, while at the same time exposing me to some of the wonders of Asia’s arts and cultures. The G.I. Bill gave me the way to become a painter. My work first appeared on the New York art scene in 1969. I was exploring ways to expand the expressive possibilities of Abstract Expressionism by incorporating signs and images from many personally moving sources into an abstract matrix. In particular, I was affected by my feelings about the issues and concerns of our times, by my family and personal world, by the world of art, and by my time in the studio as a working artist. During the last twenty years my main inspiration has come from extensive travel in Asia where one is bombarded by complex layers of forms and colors and by the many creative expressions of spirituality that pervade Asian life, especially in India. The signs and symbols and the effects of time and weather on the shrines and walls affect the content of my work and balance my formal concerns with human and caring concerns. For each painting these sources initiate a journey of discovery following the path of intuition to an unpredictable arrival that I could not foresee.