Shaun Tan has racked-up the accolades as an artist and author of works imbued with remarkable, dream-like insights.
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He looks for clues to the riddles of the everyday, tries to make sense of the struggle and grasps at the glimmers of enlightenment that keep the soul bandaged to stir another day.
That's even if a superficial look at some of his work can erroneously suggest something far darker.
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Many know of Tan from his picture books of whimsy, from his Academy Award for an animated adaption of his title The Lost Thing.
Nine years ago, his body of work led to him being awarded the most prestigious prize in children's literature, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, named for the author of the Pippi Longstocking books.
But again, it's a completely different, reflective world that holds significance for Tan, whose genius artistic rendering is of the ebb and flow through the light and the dark.
One such creation, his picture book The Red Tree, reached out to Albury's Baker family. Mary Baker, as a teenager struggling with her own mental health, found a great resonance in the story.
She wrote, a year before she died, of the book's revelation of "inspiration, renewal and repair, the power of hope" and "the fact that it is always there - somewhere".
After 15-year-old Mary took her own life, her mum and dad, Annette and Stuart, contacted Tan and from there, the book and the symbolism of the red tree became entwined with the event they created to help all of us touched by suicide.
Tan felt sadness over Mary's story, but could also appreciate what she saw and what many others, "especially those suffering from depression and other mental health issues", drew from the tale's imagery.
He knows also of the immense value in connections, especially in honing a craft from an often-isolated existence, and will be sharing that online at the Border's Winter Solstice on Sunday evening.
We can all draw something - comfort, insight; whatever it is, it doesn't really matter - from his belief "it is enough to show a dark thing; that alone can be immensely consoling for those confronting it in real life".
