Ian Rictor

Ian Rictor was born at Artulin / Tuwan circa 1955 and is a custodian and traditional owner of Tuwan, a significant site in the heart of Spinifex Country. Ian paints with a quiet reverence for the country that he depicts, from his relatively recent nomadic movements over the endless interior that makes up Spinifex Lands.

Ian walked from water source to food source and beyond. This was a cultural and family existence for survival in an arid land before his family were located and' brought in' by relatives in 1986, and they are the last of the known Aboriginal people to have remained living traditionally in the Great Victoria Desert.

Ian's compositions center on the life affirming sites he depicts and each are multi-layered with meaning. Many are surrounded with secrecy and only surface details can be recorded. His site of Tuwan is where the Tjulpu Tjuta Tjukurpa (Many Birds Creation Line) manifests. This is an epic Mens’ Creation narrative that follows the journey south of the Wati Nyii Nyii (Zebra Finch Men) where they place their many spears to save the world from being inundated with floodwaters.

In 1997 when the Spinifex Arts Project first began, Ian was keen to join the group of painters. He took to the medium of paint on canvas with fluency and has been painting his birthplace and surrounding country since then and has exhibited and been collected in both Australia and overseas. Ian is an impressive and skilled hunter, bush mechanic and craftsman who lives in Tjuntjuntjara Community with his extended family.