Michael Nelson Jagamara and Imants Tillers didn't get off to the best of starts. In 1985 Tillers painted his controversial work The Nine Shots which appropriated the imagery of Jagamara's Five Dreamings, without permission and seemingly with no awareness of cultural sensitivity. Tillers was somewhat shunned by the art world at the time; Jagamara was publicly upset: "One day he will be punished. Those Sydney people will get him," he said at the time.
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But 32 years later the pair have become firm friends. They first met in person in 1986 and then again in 2001, as Canberra Times arts critic Sasha Grishin put it, when writing about a joint exhibition at the Drill Hall Gallery in 2012, attaining "reconciliation through collaboration".
They've since worked together on several major projects, the most recent of which was unveiled at Parliament House on Thursday.
The Messenger is a large-scale work, covering 64 of Tillers' trademark small canvas panels, referencing classical symbolism alongside the icongraphy at the heart of Jagamara's design of the forecourt mosaic at Parliament House.
It's a work that is both fragmented in its differing styles but one which draws their stories together.
In the centre of the painting is a quote: "Blessed are those who do not hunger for justice, for they know that our fate, for better or worse, is the work of chance, which is past understanding."
Jagamara's signature is also very prominent and other hidden messages, as such, are hidden throughout the work.
Tillers, who lives in Cooma, and Jagamara, who lives in the Papunya region of the Northern Territory, would send the panels back and forth, sometimes meeting to talk and paint together in person at Michael Eather's Fireworks Gallery in Brisbane.
Tillers said working with, and developing a friendship with, Jagamara has deepened his respect for indigenous issues and the Aboriginal people.
"There were no expectations about this relationship from the beginning," Tillers said.
"It's been unpressured, and grown over such a long period now, that working with Michael is a normal process."
For Jagamara, being back at Parliament House is always a joyous occasion.
He was a "young feller" when he flew from Alice Springs to Canberra in the mid 1980s when his Possum and Wallaby Dreaming was selected as the design for the forecourt of the new Parliament House.
The concentric circles are of a great personal significance to him, and while he encourages everyone to dance on them as often as they can, he also recognises that they represent a place, as he once said, "where all people come and meet together, just like we do in our ceremonies to discuss and works things out together".
We can all be glad, that even after that inauspicious start, that Tillers and Jagamara indeed worked things out.
The Messenger features in a new exhibition Meeting Place: Michael Nelson Jagamara and Imants Tillers. The exhibition features works produced collaboratively as well as individual works by both artists. It can be found in the Presiding Officers' Exhibition Area on level one of Parliament House, alongside the Great Hall.
The exhibition is open daily until November 12, 2017.
