Artist explores life’s fleeting moments in Art Post Uki milestone exhibition

FOR internationally acclaimed artist, writer and composer Matt Ottley, the ever-changing nature of life is both a source of wonder and a reminder of humanity’s place within a much larger world.

His exhibition, Ephemera and the Eternal Sky, explores themes of impermanence, transformation and the fragile beauty of existence, marking the 70th exhibition hosted by Art Post Uki.

Ottley was the first artist ever exhibited as part of Art Post Uki.

He said his latest return holds personal significance, with the milestone representing a new chapter in his artistic career.

“It was a great honour for me to be asked to present the 70th exhibition for Art Post Uki,” he said.

“For the past few decades, I have been working as a children’s and YA author and illustrator, and although I’ve had a very successful career, it is time for me to be turning back to my first love in the visual arts, which is painting in a different way than I would for books.”

Ottley said the exhibition began with a single observation – the similarities between forms found throughout nature.

“I’ve always been interested in the similar morphologies that appear throughout nature,” he said.

“I was looking at a cumulus cloud one day, and it occurred to me that the billowing shapes – the bulges and flowing patterns – were similar to the muscle shapes in a human torso.”

That idea became the foundation for The Impermanence of Being, a work that explores the contrast between human strength and the immense but transient forces of nature.

“The title came about because I’d painted the back view of a male torso against a great billowing cloud and it occurred to me that the muscular power embedded in the human figure is insignificant against the raw power of the cloud, and yet the cloud will have changed and dissipated within minutes,” Ottley said.

“All life, all states of matter and being is transient.”

He said that idea informed other works in the exhibition, with clouds and skies acting as powerful symbols of change, carrying both beauty and introspection.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the sky and by clouds,” Ottley said.

“Once, after a trip to Europe, I realised after I returned home that I’d taken more photographs of cloudscapes through the aeroplane window than of anything in Europe.”

“The sky can present such an extraordinary array of vistas – everything from the mighty and majestic to the serene, inspiring thoughts that are everything from awe to the deeply introspective.”

Ottley’s work often combines the surreal with everyday experiences, including The Day the Baby Arrived, which depicts a giant baby resting in a tree.

 

“That particular painting has layered themes,” he said.

“On the surface it’s a humorous take on the idea that the arrival of a baby in anyone’s life is a ‘big’ thing.

“That big thing will, however, be impermanent.

“Babies grow and change.

“The tree it lies in has no leaves, representing the idea of transience.”

Beyond his visual art, Ottley’s creative practice spans more than 40 published books, writing and music.

He said the different forms of expression are deeply connected.

“I feel that the different creative modalities are all linked at a deep level anyway – they come from the same source in all of us – that need to express about the world around us,” he said.

Ottley also lives with synaesthesia, a rare condition in which stimulation of one sense automatically triggers another.

For Ottley, synaesthesia means sound creates colours and shapes in his visual cortex, with sound and image becoming intricately linked in his creative process.

“It helps that I have the condition of synaesthesia, where sound, particularly pitched sound creates colour and shape in my visual cortex,” he said.

“Synaesthesia is a rare condition, a cross-wiring of the senses where one sense triggers a response in the other senses.

“In this way sound and image have always been intricately linked for me.”

Ephemera and the Eternal Sky will be on exhibition at Uki Post Office from 25 June–5 August as part of Art Post Uki.