Tilly, Grant
T-Series & Saints and Apostles Series
T-SERIES
This series of works arose when Cameron Drawbridge asked me to do some bigger works than I normally do and suggested something about, oh, I don’t know, a metre and a half square. I hadn’t been working on anything quite that size but after some thought, I decided it would be a challenge to meet his expectations. The square shape didn’t particularly fire my interest, so I took up the idea of a “T” work I’d originally done of Island Bay for an old collaborator, David McGill. The T shape then provided me with the extra push I needed to get started on these related but separate pieces – In The Country, In The City, In The Garden and At The Beach. I like the idea that the viewer, should they wish to do so, can fill in the gaps for themselves. It also seemed a nice idea to include an appropriate bird in each piece.
SAINTS AND APOSTLES SERIES
This is the second part of a series I began last year using Russian religious icons as an inspiration and our native bird species as specific Saints and Apostles. Our native birds, I think, are worthy of our interest and appreciation in an almost reverential way, hence the treatment you see here. Mind you, I suppose the halos could just as easily be a sun or a moon or both.
GRANT TILLY, December 2006 – January 2007. back to artist page
