Reggie Sultan Apengarte / Honey Ant Dreaming (SUL224)

Reggie Sultan was born in Alice Springs in 1955 and is a Kaytetye artist whose mother’s Country lies around Barrow Creek and Neutral Junction in Central Australia. He now lives in Darwin.

Reggie first took up painting as a young boy while attending the Alice Springs Convent School, where he won a number of school art awards. Much of his early artistic education, however, came from watching older artists painting along the Todd River and Chinaman’s Creek. His earliest works were landscapes influenced by the Namatjira tradition, depicting the Country around Alice Springs, and he sold his first painting through the mission block store.

As a young man Reggie worked on cattle stations as a station hand and fencer, continuing to paint whenever he had the opportunity. In 1985 he became a professional artist and began expanding his practice beyond landscape painting, incorporating dot painting, Aboriginal symbols and figurative imagery to tell stories connected to his mother’s Country and his own experiences of life in the Central Australian bush.

Over the years Reggie has developed a highly individual narrative style. His paintings depict hunting, gathering bush foods, finding water, ceremony, Country and ancestral stories, often populated by small figures whose activities unfold across the landscape. He is also known for his distinctive use of strong reds, yellows and ochre tones and for creating textured, speckled backgrounds using leaves.

Reggie’s work also extends to important historical and social narratives. In 2026, exhibiting under his full name Reginald Sultan, he was selected as a finalist in the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (Telstra NATSIAA) for Coniston Station massacre 2025 in the Telstra General Painting Award category. The work addresses the 1928 Coniston killings in Central Australia and was subsequently acquired by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.

The acquisition marks an important recognition of Reggie’s practice and of his ability to use painting not only to tell stories of Country and traditional life, but also to bear witness to difficult histories of loss, survival and injustice.

In addition to his painting practice, Reggie is an author and illustrator. His published works include his autobiography, An Uncontrollable Child: The Autobiography of an Aboriginal Artist, and the illustrated children’s book The Seven Sisters. He has exhibited nationally and has also produced public artwork, including a mural at the Darwin Entertainment Centre.

Selected Exhibitions and Awards

• 2026: Finalist, Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, Telstra General Painting Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Coniston Station massacre 2025 acquired by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
• 1995: Twelfth National Aboriginal Art Awards, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
• 1994: Australian Heritage Commission National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Old Parliament House, Canberra
• 1994: Eleventh National Aboriginal Art Awards, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
• 1993: Tenth National Aboriginal Art Awards, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
• 1991: Flinders Art Gallery, Townsville
• 1989: Sixth National Aboriginal Art Awards, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

Public Art

• Mural, Darwin Entertainment Centre

Selected Bibliography

• Hardy, J., Megaw, J.V.S. and Megaw, M.R. (eds), 1992, The Heritage of Namatjira: The Watercolourists of Central Australia, William Heinemann, Australia
• Sultan, Reggie, An Uncontrollable Child: The Autobiography of an Aboriginal Artist
• Sultan, Reggie, The Seven Sisters

In Honey Ant Dreaming, Reggie Sultan Apengarte depicts the gathering of honey ants, a highly prized traditional bush food found in the desert regions of Central Australia.

Honey ants live in underground nests, where some ants store nectar in their greatly swollen abdomens. Finding them requires knowledge of the Country and an understanding of where the nests lie beneath the ground. Women traditionally dig down into the nests using digging sticks, carefully searching for the honey-filled ants.

At the centre of Reggie’s painting is a large gathering of honey ants, surrounded by pathways leading out across the Country. Between these pathways are symbols representing women, shown with their coolamons and digging sticks as they travel out to collect the ants. The repeated imagery creates a sense of movement around the central nest and reflects the shared activity of gathering bush food.

Through his distinctive use of colour, texture and traditional symbols, Reggie brings together Country, food gathering and cultural knowledge, celebrating a practice that has been passed from one generation to the next.