On Sunday the family would go out fishing in the swamps that ran off the River Murray we would catch catfish and with the catfish Mum would do a good curry soup, 2004
acrylic on linen
91.5
x 122.0
cm
SOLD
Provenance
Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
Private collection, Brisbane
Born under a gum tree at Swan Reach on the River Murray in 1947, Ian Abdulla's life was intrinsically linked to the river. In this joyful painting "On Sunday the family would go out fishing in the swamps that ran off the River Murray we would catch catfish and with the catfish Mum would do a good curry soup" (2004) Abdulla depicts this life lived on the land.
Painted with an electric palette of acrylic on linen, Abdulla's signature naive style is held in a compelling tension with the artist's wisdom and experience. Combining his images with a single sentence of text, Abdulla makes explicit the autobiographical nature of his practice. Having started his art career at age 41 he was uninterested in painting his contemporary surrounds, instead turning his attention to remembered images of a time past. Here the artist offers a vision of his family - he was one of eleven children - in harmony with nature as they fish for food on the swampy bank of the river. There is an astonishing attention to detail in this work, and even the most minute of brushstrokes unlock clues to this story; the way that the tiny figures wield their fishing lines, or the downturned beaks of the pelicans as they too fish for food beneath the water's surface.