Fierce Paradise: Conversations with Aboriginal Art
Imants Tillers presents a major retrospective exhibition ‘Wildes Paradies: Gespräche mit Aboriginal Kunst/ Fierce Paradise: Conversations with Aboriginal Art’ of works spanning five decades, including a number of collaborative works with Warlpiri Elder Michael Nelson Jagamara AM, at the Museum im Schafstall, Neuenstadt am Kocher, Germany. The exhibition continues to 31 May 2026.
Michael Nelson Jagamara and Imants Tillers, Afterlife 2, 2024, synthetic polymer paint, gouache on 48 canvasboards, nos. 114843–114890, 152.4 x 284.5 cm
Co-curated by Museum director, Hubert Sawatzki and Isidore Tillers, the exhibition highlights Imants Tillers’ ongoing exploration of identity, displacement and locality, as well as his longstanding interest in Australian Aboriginal Art and its possible connections to his own experience as a member of the Latvian Diaspora.
Imants Tillers. Journey to Nowhere, 2017, Courtesy of the artist. © Imants Tillers
Works from the exhibition are now available to view on the ‘Fierce Paradise’ exhibition website along with the digital catalogue including the following texts:
Isidore Tillers, Introduction
Mario Urlaß, Opening Remarks
Imants Tillers, My Stables Exhibition, 16 September 2025
Ian McLean, The Painter Who Loves Books: Imants Tillers
Graham Coulter Smith, Imants Tillers: Aboriginal Art, Identity and Displacement
Evelyn Juers, Baltic Blues. And Other Colours. 1 April 2025, Sydney Review of Books and Baltic Sea Library
“This ‘stables exhibition’ consists entirely of quotations. A forest of quotations. Especially those in the Aboriginal paintings and references to it in this exhibition. Of course Aboriginal art is seldom described by the word ‘quotation’. Instead the enigmatic term ‘Dreamings’ is used to describe their work. And ‘Dreamings’ are considered to be highly original in the context of contemporary art. As in a sense they are… Australian First Nations people, who have now been acknowledged as the oldest continuous culture in the world, dating back at least 65,000 years. I, small transient being, I believe that ‘quotation’ is really a form of ‘re-creation!’ Keeping the past alive. Just as Aboriginal artists keep their ‘Dreamings’ alive for millenia through repetition and quotation. REALITY WORKS IN OVERT MYSTERY,” Imants Tillers, excerpt from My Stables Exhibition
