written, "is a symbolic discourse of which man alone is capable... I think of art as a tool of understanding, an instrument of transformation to put yourself in harmony with the world and (with) life... The basic given data of experience and the physiological and psychological aspects of procreation and birth are totally unchanged. What I'm dealing with is trying to pick up these very basic facts and propose them again as Art". The themes Tilson chooses for his work aspire to transcend time and cut across cultures, to communicate the sacred in nature via references to preclassical mythology, the North American Indians, the Dream Time of the Australian Aboriginals, alchemy. Modular structuring devices - the letters of the alphabet, the days of the week, the circular mnemonic devices of Alchera which relate to the four cardinal points as well as the four elements and the four seasons, the lunar month, labyrinths, ladders, puzzles, games, words, symbols - are assembled in matrices, layered with universal meaning. One of the generation ofBritish artists - including Frank Auerbach, R.B. Kitaj, Peter Blake. Allen Jones and David Hockney - who studied at the Royal College of Art, Tilson first had his works exhibited internationally at the 1964 Venice Biennale and subsequently at a retrospective show at the Boyman