Since the early 1980s, Imants Tillers' gridded canvas board paintings have responded to issues of migration, identity, place and displacement. A key proponent of postmodern discourse and appropriation in Australia, Tillers draws on the rich source material offered up by art history. In 2018 the National Portrait Gallery commissioned him to paint playwright, screenwriter and author Louis Nowra (b. 1950). One of Australia's most successful playwrights, Nowra has written 36 plays including Inner Voices, The Golden Age and Summer of the Aliens, as well as novels, memoirs, non-fiction and essays. He is perhaps best known for his plays Così and Radiance, both of which were adapted into highly acclaimed films.
Described by the artist as a 'kind of mental picture rather than a physical one', Tiller's portrait explores aspects of Nowra's identity and biography through an arrangement of text, symbolism, stick figures and his sitter's pet chihuahua Coco. Dispersed across 64 canvas boards, they represent the mutability of self, always transforming and in a state of becoming. Nowra has commented that he loves the portrait because 'nobody can recognise me'.
Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Bednall, Jillian Broadbent AC, John Kaldor AO and Naomi Milgrom AO 2018
© Imants Tillers
Jillian Broadbent AC (7 portraits supported)
Tim Bednall (4 portraits supported)
John Kaldor AO and Naomi Milgrom AO (1 portrait supported)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Aimee Board ventures within and beyond to consider two remarkable new Gallery acquisitions.
18 October 2018
Dr Helen Nugent AO, Chairman, National Portrait Gallery at the opening of 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.
