An introduction
Bernard Ollis is one of those painters who elude easy categorization. This is at best a mixed blessing, because art historians love to be able to define an artist as an expressionist, a realist, a surrealist, or some plausible combination. Ollis is a little of each, but ultimately none of the above. He is a figurative painter, but like most established artists is willing to admit that all art is abstract.
He is a painter of people, but with none of the angst and pessimism that seem to be standard features of those artists who spend their careers studying the Human Condition. There is a lot of humour in Ollis’s work, but none of the smug, all-pervasive irony beloved of the Postmodernists. He is, in short, an awkward proposition, and his paintings revel in a kind of studied awkwardness.
Ollis is a narrative painter, but each picture is nothing more than a fragment. He will begin with a simple setting such as a bedroom, a street, or a patio, and gradually add the dramatis personae and details. A work develops its own momentum, with objects, people or animals multiplying as if by spontaneous generation. While Ollis may begin with a specific idea, by the time the painting is finished it has usually metamorphosed into something quite different.
Extract from an essay by John McDonald art critic for the Sydney Morning Herald.
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Bernard is the author of 'Darwin Daze' a 240 page hardcover book, available now from bookshops. There is also a 170 page version available now as an ebook on Amazon.
Description: A 26 year old graduating student from The Royal College of Art, London, goes on the journey of a lifetime to take up the position of lecturer in drawing and painting at The Darwin Community College, Northern Territory, Australia.
The year is 1976 and the young, enthusiastic, but naive young man travels from Chelsea (a suburb in London) to Casuarina (a suburb of Darwin), Nothing could prepare the young adventurer for what would lay ahead.
The memoirs are accompanied by photographs, paintings and oil pastel works, many in full colour. In addition, Bernard has produced pen and ink drawings specifically for this book.
Hardcover, ISBN: 9780646857374 Published by Martin Lane Design, Distributed by Peribo.
View sample pages at Amazon.com.au