Ros Sultan is an Eastern Arrernte and Gurindji woman who uses ink; texta pens; acrylic paints; and finely ground earth that resembles pigment or ochre to create intricate and highly detailed images.
With painstaking attention to detail, Sultan works at a small scale, employing repetition and a carefully measured colour palette to create delicate and captivating works.
A prolific artist, Sultan works daily, often for hours at a time, constantly refining her techniques and experimenting with materials. Her restrained use of lines, dots and shapes echo the disciplined manner in which she works. The scale and structured application of ink to paper draws viewers closer into these intimate works, which are both engaging and calming.
For this exhibition, entitled jarrawujarrawuwarra, meaning ‘moving light’ in Gurindji language[i], Sultan’s detailed drawings created at a truly miniscule size, (never more than a few centimetres wide) are projected at a momentous scale. The light beams life into the lines, shapes, curves and colours of each delicately arranged composition creating movement as they dance across the park.
[i] Meakins, Felicity, McConvell, Patrick, Charola, Erika, McNair, Norm, McNair, Helen, and Campbell, Lauren, ‘Gurindji to English Dictionary’ (2013), Batchelor Press, NT.