An Uncontrollable Child. The autobiography of an Aboriginal artist.

By Reggie Sultan

ISBN 9780977503520

Published by David M. Welch 2008

Format: Paperback

108 pages, with 90 colour photos, 2 black and white photos and a map.

Price: $25 plus $6 postage and handling.

Availability: Available – order on line

 

Book Details

Contents

Introduction

Part One - My Story

Pioneering Muslim Afghan cameleers in Australia

Kaititja people at Barrow Creek

Part Two – Paintings

Landscape paintings with watercolour

Dot paintings – acrylic paints on canvas

Leaf and speckled background paintings

Modern Aboriginal art styles

Random brush background paintings

Credits and further reading

 

Back page Summary

In documenting his life and art, Reggie Sultan provides a unique window of insight for the reader to clearly grasp the concepts and nuances found in Central Australian Aboriginal art.

From a Kaititja (Barrow Creek area) Aboriginal mother and an Afghan father he grew up to be a successful Aboriginal artist, painting in both the landscape style with watercolours and the non-figurative traditional Central Australian Aboriginal art style, where he employs either a dot background or his unique speckled background.

After running away and stealing cars, Reggie Sultan was described by Welfare Officers as “an uncontrollable child.” Reggie tells his story of being sent to boys’ homes in Sydney, Adelaide and Darwin, of his escapes, being sent to gaol, his work as a stockman, and his development as an Aboriginal artist.

Book extracts

Reggie painting at the Devils Marbles (Karlwe Karlwe), south of Tennant Creek. These consist of outstanding gigantic round granite boulders and stacks spread over several square kilometres. Here, he is painting in a watercolour style on paper.

The finished painting of the Devils Marbles. 37 cm x 55 cm.

The motifs in Central Australian Aboriginal art are found in ancient rock engravings of the region. Concentric circles (representing waterholes) and animal tracks feature amongst a range of designs.

Reggie: “I can see the story here. This emu is walking towards this waterhole. This kangaroo is heading this way.”

“All these (concentric) circles are water holes, and these (in blue) are the people – a man with his spear and shield. These hunters are spearing the emus when they come to the waterholes to drink. The emus are walking up and down” (arrow shapes at the left represent the three main toes of an emu, as if it was walking towards Reggie) “and one of them has stopped to have a drink of water. You can see the mark on the ground where it sat down.” (Reggie is pointing to the extra white line behind the print immediately in front of the waterhole, which represents the ground imprint of the leg when the emu sits.) “One emu was walking across the land to Barrow creek. The dots represent the earthy colours, red, orange, brown and yellow. And this kangaroo here (the double-tick motifs at the left) has a sore foot. See the bit of red colour inside the footprint. He’s bleeding after walking on the stony ground for a long time. Sometimes they bleed from the rocky ground or they get a corn like us, sore foot, you know.”

Central Australia is an arid region with irregular rainfall. Permanent waterholes are essential to survival, hence they feature in Aboriginal religion, legend and art. Local Kaititja women, Selma Thompson and Lena Nambula, show Ann Welch this important soakage (waterhole) in Barrow Creek. Even after the most extreme drought, if this waterhole was dry, water can be obtained below the sand by digging down with a small wooden dish, using it like a spade, until the water level is reached. Important soakages such as these are depicted as concentric circles in Central Australian art, as seen here on Reggie’s paintings.

Even the use of dots dates back thousands of years in Aboriginal art, as evidenced here in early Central Australian rock engravings. Reggie pointing to a design featuring engraved dots.

Many of Reggie’s paintings are based around the theme of a waterhole or soakage, depicted as concentric circles. Sometimes these have a creek running into them, or they are shown along a creek, depicted as wavy parallel lines. In the section of painting shown here, a woman (the “u” shape) with her digging stick and coolamon beside her, sits near the waterhole (concentric circles). The theme of a woman and her implements is repeated across the painting – away from the creek, the women are sitting around groups of witchetty grubs (white shapes). Honey ants, another bush tucker found along the creek, are also depicted.

Lena Nambula (left) and Carol Thompson digging for witchetty grubs amongst the roots of the witchetty bush (Acacia kempeana), a type of wattle tree, in Kaititja country. Nowadays, modern steel crowbars replace traditional wooden digging sticks. In Central Australian Aboriginal art, the elements of this scene are reduced to abstract forms. Hence, the women are depicted as “u” shapes and their digging sticks as lines. The tree becomes a circle or just the depiction of the grubs, an important food source.

Collecting honey ants. Clockwise from left: Vanessa Price, Alex Shannon, Selma Thompson and Lena Nambula (doing the digging) from Tara Community, Kaititja country. The ants’ nest consists of numerous chambers, each containing a few honey ants. These have to be carefully removed without breaking the honey sac. A simple carrying dish is made by stripping off some bark from a nearby tree and placing soil at the bottom, providing a soft cushion for the ants. Some are eaten immediately, the rest are taken back home to share with others. We collected about 80 ants from this nest. To eat the honey, you very delicately pick up the ant, holding its head and body between your fingers (so that it doesn’t bite your lips). Placing the honey sac between your lips, you suck the honey, which bursts from the sac, and then throw the ant down on the ground. Done gently, the ant survives. Eating honey ants is the most delicious experience – the rush of honey is like an explosion of taste with the softest, sweetest honey you have ever tasted. (DMW.)

Aboriginal campsite showing people in front of their windbreaks (the large arcs). 30 cm x 62 cm.

Paintings

Paintings by Aboriginal artist, Reggie Sultan, born 1955. Kaitish tribe, Barrow Creek, Northern Territory.

 

Reggie paints with acrylic on canvas, incorporating traditional themes and motifs.
The traditional art style of central Australia is largely symbolic, with circles representing important places or events, and dots representing a surface texture, be it feather down body decoration used in corroboree (Aboriginal dance), or the texture of the desert sands. Arc shapes represent people sitting, often shown with a line or oval beside them. The line may represent a woman’s digging stick or a man’s spear. The elongated oval shape may represent a woman’s coolamon (wooden bark carrying dish) or a man’s shield. Lines may represent the pathways taken by Ancestral Beings in the creation Period, or the pathways taken by people. Human and animal tracks also represent movement across the land.

 

Catalogue No. B1.  Collecting bush oranges. Size: 114 x 62 cm.
The arc and oval motifs are the traditional symbols representing a seated person, in this case each arc represents a woman, and the oval shape on each side represents her coolamons (wooden bark dishes) used to collect the bush fruit.

Price: AUS $ 450

 

Catalogue No.  B2. Collecting wild prickly pear. Size: 114 x 62cm.
The arc and oval motifs are the traditional symbols representing a seated person, in this case each arc represents a woman, and the oval shape on each side represents her coolamons (wooden bark dishes) used to collect the bush fruit.

Price: AUS $450

 

Catalogue No. A1.  The Story of the Seven Sisters. Size: 112 x 64cm.

A small cluster of stars make up a constellation known to astronomers as the Pleiades Cluster. In central Australian Aboriginal mythology, this cluster represents “The Seven Sisters”, who came down from the sky and visited the people on the earth. The painting shows the Seven Sisters as stars in the bright band of the Milky Way. Their footprints show their movement from the sky, to the earth, and back again. When they visited the earth, they came to a water hole (the black circle in the lower centre), and ate some bush foods (shown along the lower part of the painting).

Kangaroos and emus (Australia’s large, flightless bird) also drank from the same water hole, (their tracks are shown), as well as the snakes depicted. Kangaroo tracks are at the left, and emu tracks (looking like arrows) at the right. When these animals squat to drink at a water hole, the tail of the kangaroo leaves an impression, and the hind part of the emu’s foot leaves an impression. These are depicted here.

The seven sisters met with seven warriors, and these are shown around their camp fire  (top right, shown as black arcs around a black circle). The warriors’ spears are the row of lines at the top, and their shields are the row of ovals at the right.

Price: AUS $600.

 

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