Drift

Imants Tillers was born in Sydney and studied Architecture at the University of Sydney. He collaborated with Christo on the 'wrapping' of Little Bay in 1969, and with George Baldessin in 1975 for the Sao Paolo Bienale with 'Conversations with the bride'; in 1976 they made a series of ten etchings 'According to "Des Esseintes"' (in the Gallery's collection).

Tillers' work utilises appropriation - in this case, Drift 'quotes' a lost black and white painting by Jackson Pollock, 'Number 24, 1951' 1951 (see Francis Valentine O'Connor and Eugene Victor Thaw Pollock, 'A catalogue raisonné of paintings, drawings and other works', New Haven: Yale, 1978 [331]). Tillers made a number of paintings based on Pollock's black enamel paintings, exhibited in 1991. The sixteen blocks used to print it reflects Tillers' use of multiple canvas boards in his paintings. The print was made in collaboration with John Loane, Melbourne. The first layer is printed in black oil-based ink with some colour applied by hand from one block, as a monotype; the over-layer in white water-based ink from 15 blocks with hand coloring with red acrylic paint. The blocks were cut by Loane and Stephen Anderson after tracings by Tillers.

Hendrik Kolenberg and Anne Ryan, 'Australian prints from the Gallery's collection', AGNSW, 1998