Tiger has just started to paint in the art centre. He likes bold colours and at the end of every day he takes a small pot of paint home to repaint his hat and shoes. It makes him happy. Tiger says he likes to paint because there is nothing to do at home.

An Essay by David Hagger for the occations of Tiger Yaltangki: The First Solo Exhibition -

On a typically clear and sunny day in Indulkana, South Australia, almost two years ago, a young man shyly entered the art centre to ask if he could paint his hat. At first he was turned away – paint is reserved only for working artists. Following repeated attempts, the art centre coordinators asked the young man if he would like to paint a picture instead. The resulting work made it immediately clear that they had an artist in the making. Tiger Yaltangki is now viewed as one of the exciting emerging artists working in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands of South Australia.

For Tiger Yaltangki, this newfound vocation in the arts has been a salvation from uncertain employment opportunities. Yaltangki has an acquired brain injury from petrol sniffing as a teenager, a major problem in many Indigenous communities of Australia. However it has not impaired his talent and creativity. His endearing personality makes him a well-loved participant in art centre activities happily playing the joker amongst his peers and colleagues, often singing and entertaining them into fits of laughter.

Whiskey Tjukangku and Alec Baker, the first ‘art men’ of Iwantja, have encouraged the younger generation of Iwantja men and women to develop their artistic practices. While a number of them work alongside these two elders, Yaltangki chooses to paint alone. Commendably, at this impressionable stage of his career, he has chosen to let his style develop unaffected by the observation of other artist’s work.

Yaltangki’s art practice brings a rawness that is both thrilling and startling. His paintings are as bold as his character, wild in subject and appearance. He takes delight in colours that jar in the presence of one another. A recent series shows a sensitivity that goes beyond the high impact, complementary hues and into a palette of muted yellows, greens, blues and greys. Subtle shifts in colour come about through a veil of dotting. This deft exploration of tonal values reveals a sound execution of split complimentary, triad, and tetrad sections of the colour wheel. This is most extraordinary, given he has had no tutelage or schooling in this area. It indicates a mind driven by the response to that which is playing out before him, immediate and true. It reaches further than a simple trial and error methodology and demonstrates the instinctual nature of his means for invoking sensation through his imagery.

Using simple bands of flat colour, gestural strokes, and truncated detail, Yaltankgi delivers organic forms that are symbolic of the creeks, water and rockholes found in his country. As a hunter and gatherer, he passes through the Apu Hills that surround Indulkana, collecting punu (wood) and mai wiru (good food) along the way. These hills feature heavily amongst his aerial landscapes, often flanking the edges of the canvas and containing within them significant sites of the area. Not only is he commanding and ambitious in his interpretation of this land, but considered in his approach to the great creation stories held within these hills.

At the end of every day, Yaltangki takes home a small pot of paint to recolour his now famous and heavily loaded cowboy hat. One wonders whether this small gesture, a reward of sorts, is the impetus for him returning each day or simply an act of joy carried out in his true, full of life character.

If we look back on that day nearly two years ago, when Yaltangki asked for a simple share of paint, one never could have guessed what would unfold – not even Yaltangki himself.