Imants Tillers, an artist whose practice spans more than five decades, is one of Australia’s foremost contemporary practitioners whose prominent position within Australian contemporary art is firmly established.

A child of Latvian refugees who arrived in Australia in 1949, exiled from their homeland by war and political turmoil, and part of the great post-war European diaspora, this childhood experience of being displaced to a new land, isolated from cultural and personal histories, has become a central theme in Tillers’ practice.

Since 1981 Tillers has used his signature compositional device of multiple canvas boards to explore themes relevant to contemporary culture, including the effects of migration, displacement and diaspora. After moving to Cooma in New South Wales in 1996, his paintings have started to focus on place, locality and evocations of landscape.

Juxtaposing layers of imagery and text drawn from a great many sources of influence and inspiration the works reflect a convergence of ideas and a multiplicity of references that cite art, history, literature, philosophy, poetry and the artist’s personal history.

Tillers represented Australia at the São Paulo Art Biennial (1975), Documenta 7 (1982) and the 42nd Venice Biennale (1986). He has been the subject of major survey exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London (1988), the National Art Gallery in Wellington (1989), the Pori Art Museum in Finland (1995), The Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterray [MARCO] in Mexico, (1999) and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra (2006).

Tillers’ international profile was consolidated through participation in group exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, the Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

He is the recipient of multiple notable awards including the Osaka Triennial Prizes (Gold in 1993, Bronze in 1996, Silver in 2001), the Award for Excellence at the inaugural Beijing International Art Biennale (2003), the Wynne Prize for Landscape Painting (2012, 2013), and the Kultura Fonda Award from the World Association of Free Latvians for his “contribution to the visual arts and for honouring Latvia’s unique cultural traditions and disseminating them throughout the world” (2018).