Iris field

Tillers has appropriated Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico's paintings since 1981. As Wystan Curnow has written, "Tillers admires de Chirico for the very qualities which were, after the 1920s, to ruin his reputation: his stylistic 'non sequiters', his supposed plagiarism or 'appropriations' of old masters and of his own work, and the apparent lack of a seamless linear development. All qualities Tillers' own work displays. And, as his own practice makes clear, he understands that the enigmatic power of the [de Chirico's] early (universally admired) 'metaphysical' works cannot be separated from the artist's lifelong obsession with repetition." (Curnow, pp. 42).

'Iris Field' was made at the same time as such key works by Tillers as 'Antipodean Manifesto', which also appropriates de Chirico's 'Metaphysical Interior with setting sun', 1971, as well as referring to other related De Chirico paintings from the same period. 'Antipodean Manifesto', as the title implies, overlays the De Chirico with images from Australian, and specifically Aboriginal, Art. 'Iris Field' however has many human eyes painted over the De Chirico, which become the field of irises. The eyes float across the painting, regarding us as we look at the work. They recall the history of depicting eyes in art - from medieval representations to the 'evil eye' amulets of the Mediterranean - as well as suggesting Tiller's own act of closely looking at de Chirico's art. De Chirico influenced the surrealists and the field of eyes in this painting is undoubtedly also surreal in nature.