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Model of Reality, Imants Tillers
  • Artist
    Imants Tillers
  • Born
    1950
  • Title
    Model of Reality
  • Date of Production
    (1989)
  • Medium
    acrylic, gouache, oilstick on 90 canvas boards
  • Dimensions
    overall: 228.6 x 381 cm, each panel: 38.1 x 25.4 cm
  • Credit Details
    Purchased with funds from the Colin Hicks Caldwell Bequest Fund, 1992. © The Artist

Imants Tillers

Model of Reality

An architectural student before becoming a painter and landscape designer, Tillers began to work in a multipanel format in 1981. Part of an ongoing project called the Book of Power in which each canvas board panel is a page, Tillers' Model of Reality consists of ninety panels to which he has added the words 'MODEL OF REALITY' and 'HERE ME NOW'.

To Tillers, whose interests include cultural identity and colonisation, the source of his imagery is important as he recycles iconic images with contemporary narrative. Working with a reproduction, Tillers draws a grid over it and then transposes each square on to canvas board.

In Model of Reality, which is based on Eugene von Guerard's 1859 Bushfire between Mt Elephant and Timboon, Tillers has captured the same sense of drama of the original work.  Just as various reproductions that are circulated in the electronic and print media vary from the orginal images, so does Tiller's version of von Guerard's bushfire.