IAN ABDULLA - LOOKING FOR BOTTLES
IAN ABDULLA
LOOKING FOR BOTTLES,
152 x 90.5 cm
Synthetic Polymer Paint on Canvas
PROVENANCE
Purchased Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, SA, 1993Private Collection, NSW
STORY
Ngarrindjeri artist Ian AbdullaĀ lived all his life at Cobdolga, an early irrigation settlement in the Riverland region of South Australia. The township is located beside the Murray River. He began painting in the late 1980s relating the simple narrative stories that recorded his recollections of times and deeds that illuminated the life of the local Aboriginal people living in rural poverty. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, hisĀ childhood memories, though simply told, are far from simple and, importantly, are deeply grounded in historical context. It is a perspective that is at once personal and political, though gently so.The text on this artwork reads:Sometimes when things would get hard in the early days and getting low, some of us boys would go out and look for some cool drink bottles between Cobdolga and Kingston on the Murray River in the River Land to sell for the money.
EXHIBITED
Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Centre, SA, 1993Tyerabarrbowaryaou 2, I shall never become a whiteman, 5th Havana Biennial, Cuba, & Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 1994 Alie[N]ation - A survey of Australian Aboriginal Urban Art, Cooee Art, NSW, 2018Illustrated in: Tyerabarrbowaryaou 2, I Shall Never Become a Whiteman, Exhib. Cat., Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 1994.
