Tiger Yaltangki Self-portrait

This is the first time in the Archibald Prize for Aṉangu artist Tiger Yaltangki. Born in Pukatja (Ernabella) in 1973, he lives in Indulkana Community on the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in the remote north-west of South Australia. Art is Yaltangki’s primary form of self-expression. A compulsive drawer and mark-maker, he works every day at the Iwantja Arts art centre.

Yaltangki often pops up in his paintings as a benevolent floating head with pointed ears. He actually appears twice here, upside-down at the top left-hand corner and in miniature in the lower-right. Other characters in his compositions – like the two-faced skeleton and dinosaur – are sometimes references to the Aṉangu concept of mamu (spirit beings) and sometimes pure imagination, just for the fun of it.

Yaltangki’s vibrant and prolific artistic output is closely informed by his love of music, and he paints to an eclectic soundtrack spanning from Credence Clearwater Revival to country crooners to local desert reggae. One constant is the hard rock of AC/DC, who frequently figure in his work via their distinctive logo and electric guitar worship. All of these elements are drawn into Yaltangki’s whimsical visual universe in a joyous celebration of paint on canvas.