Matt Ottley is an award winning multi-modal artist, working equally across the fields of literature, visual arts and music. Matt has had 35 picture books published and his work also appears in more than thirty nonfiction books. His awards include the CBCA Picture Book of the Year and both the Queensland & NSW Premiers Awards for literature. His international awards include Ibby Honour Book for Australia and a White Ravens listing, Bologna. He is also an Endorsed Yamaha Musician and currently works as a composer with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. ‘For me the ancient art of book illustration is ironically not about the words in the story. As a story unfolds, the paintings connect the author’s words with the reader’s own lived experience.’

Heather McClelland’s BOLD YET TENDER exhibition is inspired by the local geography and takes in an eclectic mix of portraiture, life drawing and landscape.  The works on display at Art Post Uki are part of her new series “Contours of the Caldera”’.

“I enjoy creating layers in my work, playing with colour and print effects, says Heather.  In my search for form and perspective surprises often spring to life on the canvas”.

Heather and her husband Brian arrived in Uki in 2010 and have cemented a place for themselves within the local community through art, charity work and music.  Heather has had a career as secondary teacher and therapist, and taught for eight years in Bangladesh, where she and Brian formed an ongoing relationship with an NGO called Symbiosis. Symbiosis supports marginalised women in the north of Bangladesh and profits from sales of her work go to that organisation.