BERNARD OLLIS OAM
Bath, England | Born 1951 | Lives and works in Sydney and Paris
Bernard Ollis is an Australian painter and distinguished arts educator known for his expressive, highly individual approach to figurative painting. Born in Bath, England in 1951, he studied at Cardiff College of Art and Design before completing a Master of Art in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London. He moved to Australia in 1976, beginning a long association with Australian art both as a practising artist and influential educator.
Ollis developed a distinctive visual language characterised by vivid colour, deliberately distorted perspective and expressive, often whimsical figures. Interiors, intimate encounters and everyday human situations are transformed through Ollis's highly personal way of seeing. His figures are deliberately simplified and distorted, while vivid colour, flattened perspective and expressive brushwork give his paintings a distinctive sense of theatre and narrative. Rather than pursuing photographic realism, his paintings convey the atmosphere, emotion and experience of a place or moment — qualities particularly evident in his figurative and interior works.
Travel has played an important role throughout his career. Paris has been an especially enduring source of inspiration. As a young artist he undertook a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, an experience he later described as formative in his development as an artist. He has continued to return to Paris throughout his career and now divides his working life between Sydney and Paris. His travels have also taken him to locations including Egypt, China, Antarctica and the Arctic, providing inspiration for numerous bodies of work.
Alongside his painting practice, Ollis has made a significant contribution to Australian art education. He taught in the Northern Territory and later became Head of Fine Art at La Trobe University in Victoria. In 1996 he joined Sydney's National Art School as Head of Painting, subsequently becoming Director, a position he held from 1998 until 2009. In recognition of his contribution to the visual arts community, arts education and his own artistic practice, he was made a Fellow of the National Art School in 2022.
Ollis has held more than 80 solo exhibitions since 1972, exhibiting throughout Australia as well as in Britain, France, New Zealand and China. His work is represented in numerous public collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Parliament House in Canberra, the Royal College of Art in London and many Australian regional galleries.
His career has brought numerous awards and honours, including the John Minton International Painting Prize, Sir Frederick Richards Travelling Scholarship, an Australia Council Visual Arts Board Grant and the Conrad Jupiters Art Prize. In 2023, Bernard Ollis was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his service to the visual arts and to education. He remains an active exhibiting artist, continuing a career that has now spanned more than five decades.
