Bernard Ollis has had a long and successful career as a major artist in Australia and internationally. From his baptism as a lecturer in Fine Art at the Darwin Community College (now Charles Darwin University), he moved to Victoria in 1982, to take up the position of Head of Painting and eventually the Senior Lecturer at La Trobe University in Bendigo. In 1996, he moved to Sydney to become the Director and Head of the new independent National Art School, housed in the historic Darlinghurst gaol. During the next 11 years, Bernard developed degree programmes, built art galleries and transformed the entire campus as a leading arts precinct in Australia. He stepped down in 2009 to concentrate fully on his own art practice.

Bernard has held over 80 solo exhibitions of his paintings, in major commercial galleries and important museums worldwide. An extensive traveller, he has exhibited in Auckland, London, Bath, Cardiff, Paris, Berlin, Shanghai and Jinan Cultural Centres in China. In Australia, Bernard regularly has solo exhibitions in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Perth. Bernard presently spends his time working between his warehouse studio in St Peters (Sydney) and his rooftop apartment/studio in Montmartre (Paris), both of which he shares with his artist partner, Wendy Sharpe. Bernard has three daughters; Myfanwy, Madeline and Vanessa, and three grandchildren Arlo, Bobby and Edith.