Imants Tillers Namatjira

This painting is a homage to Albert Namatjira (1902–1959), one of the pivotal and tragic figures in Australian art. Through his watercolours of Central Australia, Namatjira found a way to repair some of the psychic and spiritual damage – what Kevin Gilbert has called ‘a rape of the soul’ – long endured by Aboriginal Australia.

His body of work is an art of healing and is the antecedent to the Papunya Tula art movement, which emerged unexpectedly in the early 1970s, paving the way for the blossoming of contemporary art in its myriad forms today.

- Imants Tillers