FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 22, 2024
CONTACT:
Sult Mine Creative Group
(269) 240-7180
Niles, MI – Graphic Designer and Illustrator, Steve Sult (www.sultminecreative.com) has been awarded a top placement for Natural Cannabis Company's 2024 High Art International Art Competition in Santa Rosa, California. Mr. Sult’s entry titled, “Time Warrior”, was named among the top 20 winners in a ceremony on Saturday, April 20, 2024, at the Natural Cannabis/High Art Gallery campus in Santa Rosa.
High Art was created by The Natural Cannabis Company in 2014 as a crowd-sourcing solution to packaging design. From its humble beginnings, High Art has developed into an internationally-known art competition with upwards of 6,000 entries annually from 140+ countries worldwide.
Each year professional and amateur artists create themed works through a variety of mediums to compete for $50,000 in prize money and to see their work featured on packaging, social media, at the High Art Gallery in Santa Rosa, CA, and displayed at prestigious art events, in the United States and abroad.
Mr. Sult's illustration and design titled, “Time Warrior”, Be a Rebel. Be Outrageous. Be Ecstatically Eccentric”. In his first self-portrait, he presents his entry as reimagining himself, celebrating his past visions of the future, often from the mid-20th century, and exploring how those visions might look from a modern standpoint. He wanted the design to incorporate elements of Art Deco, Space Age, and Atomic Age aesthetics, nostalgic and whimsical with subtle references to cannabis.
"In April 2023 I returned to the studio after eight weeks in hospital. My health concerns provided a basis where I wanted to be more creative than ever," Mr Sult stated. "Perhaps artistic rebirth means bringing back a piece that had faded away OR moving away from what was comfortable towards something, rebellious. Outrageous. Something ecstatically eccentric."
During his research to create his High Art, submission, “Time” themed competition artwork, Mr. Sult rediscovered a creative advertising hero of his who later turned to a highly successful illustration career. Bruce McCall, whose work was so personal and strange that he invented his own lexicon for it. Mr. McCall called it “retrofuturism,” he defined as “looking back to see how yesterday viewed tomorrow.”
Steve Sult is known for his dynamic and colorful mixed digital design and illustration. The theme of "Time" is presented against a backdrop of national debates over the legalization of cannabis, increasing acceptance of its medical use, and growing support for the legalization of recreational smoking. There is some scientific reasoning behind the influence of cannabis on art and music.
About Steve Sult: Sult lives and creates his art in Southwestern Michigan from his studio in Niles, Michigan. Steve opened his doors as Sult Mine Creative Group and built and gained national and international reputation as a creative director, art director, and illustrating designer, developing new product introductions – successfully contributing to over seventy established and emerging client organizations in diverse industries in the US, South America, China, and Europe. Today, Steve has refined this style created early in his career. His work combines elements of WPA's poster campaigns in the 1930s, pop art, Russian constructivist art, and art deco, all applied to fine art prints, notecards, apparel, home products, and social justice posters in public spaces.
To view the 2024 top winners, visit the High Art Gallery's website.