ArtX Contemporary presents Throughlines, a solo exhibition bringing together paintings from across Donald Cole’s seven-decade career, revealing the enduring threads that connect a lifetime of exploration. While his work has continually evolved, shifting in surface, scale, and material, Cole’s instinct for bold color, expressive gesture, and richly layered texture remains unmistakable.
Join us for one of our events!
Opening Reception: Thurs, April 2, 5-8pm
Artist Open House: Sat, April 18, 1-3pm
Born in New York City in 1930, Cole studied engineering at Bucknell University, later earning his MFA from the University of Iowa. While maintaining an active studio practice, he built a career that included teaching at Auburn University and Parsons School of Design while living and working in New York’s SoHo. His paintings often draw from the world around him, reflecting social and political tensions, environmental concerns, and observations of daily life while exploring the physical possibilities of paint through found materials, written language, and unconventional imagery.
Since the 1990s, following extensive travel throughout Asia, the Middle East, and Europe and his move to Vashon Island, Washington, Cole’s work has absorbed visual influences drawn from architecture, calligraphic scripts, weathered walls, textiles, and landscapes encountered around the world. These experiences expanded his approach to surface and composition, producing paintings that feel both ancient and contemporary, where traces of gesture, pattern, and color accumulate like fragments of memory.
Now in his nineties and still working daily in his studio, Cole continues to paint with remarkable vitality. Throughlines traces this ongoing exploration, revealing an artist whose work remains guided by curiosity, independence, and a lifelong engagement with the visual and material possibilities of painting.
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