BIGGEST MOB

So, you’re down in the city?

Yeah, I usually paint in my garage at home, but it’s so crammed in there now that I’ve come down to the gallery at China Heights. I’ve got a big space out the back here. I’ve just started work on my solo show. It’s good.

You’ve dodged the rain at home too. It’s been a wild summer.

Crazy. We’ve had surf for the last four months straight. There might have been like, one or two weeks where there were no waves but even then, it was like, two foot and still good, just onshore.

And there’s another run of swell coming.

Man, some of my little secret beachies at home have just been nonstop. A little bit onshore but I’ve never ever seen these beaches work with a bit of onshore. It’s been fucking weird the way the sand has pushed up onto the beach. I don’t know if the currents have changed. I don’t know if it’s the warm water currents pushing the sand now or what, but man, I’ve never seen banks like that. I was at Hat Head probably five weeks ago. We got there at 8am and left at 2.30 and there were only two other guys that came down to surf. I haven’t had Hat Head like that since I was about 16. Just amazing. Wedging rights but then these long running lefts.

I was gonna ask you about that Coffs coast. It’s a funny one because it’s pretty much the last town left on the Pacific Highway you drive through and can see the coast, but most surfers just keep on driving. They’re always heading north thinking the waves are better, but I imagine you’ve got a lot of little secret hidey holes along that coast.

It’s funny, because people drive through Coffs on the highway and they’re like, “This place is fucked.” For me, McCauleys is the best beach in the world, but north and south of there I’ve had some of the best barrels I’ve had anywhere in the world. I’m serious. There’s a bunch of reefbreaks out wide, and on an ENE swell it just breaks the swell up in a perfect pattern. The best lefthand barrels I’ve ever had have been Aussie Pipe and this place. I’ve never had barrels like that in my life. Asher Pacey and Bobby Martinez surfed this spot a few years back and Bobby reckoned it’s the best beachbreak he’s ever surfed. And that day… that’s not even a good day. They were taking off and getting short barrels, but I’ve been barreled on an eight-foot wave and popped out of the barrel on the sand. Like seriously, it barrels all the way to the sand. I’ve had a day out there with Harley Ingleby, just me and him and another bloke from Urunga, but righthanders. It was a dead south swell, and it was just running on a perfect angle. We surfed for four hours straight. When I paddled across the river to get out, I seen Harley pull into a wave that looked like Backdoor. It was eight feet, and it went all the way to one foot, and he was in the barrel the whole time. He just stepped off onto the sand. I’ve had it like that about eight or 10 times. The most incredible wave.

 People think of Coffs as just the town beaches.

A lot of people think Coffs is just McCauleys and Diggers and Parkies. Great breaks, but literally 20 minutes north and 20 minutes south… the best beachbreaks I’ve ever surfed. Maybe it’s just because I’ve grown up there, but I’ve travelled and lived everywhere as well, and I’ve never had waves like that. It just blows my mind that people drive past it. I think the surfers who drive past just don’t know about the area, which is kind of good for us, because we get to surf those waves with just us boys. I don’t mind sharing those waves with people, but at the same time there’s such a cultural significance to some of those areas that needs to be protected. One of those spots is so culturally significant for Gumbaynggirr men, so it’s like, I don’t want people to go into that place.

So, you’re torn about sharing it?

It’s just a special spot. Like, a lot of the boys that go there, I’m always saying to them, “Hey boys, don’t drive on the dunes. You’ve got to respect this place.” You know, there’d be spearheads, there’d be everything in those dunes from men teaching young men about culture. This is proper men’s blackfella country.

Is that network of elders and cultural knowledge still strong in your area?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of culture on the east coast has been lost, but at the same time Country is always talking and singing to us. The rocks and trees and the sand, they’ve got songlines in them. We can hear them if we want, we just have to learn how to listen. Again, it’s hard to explain to someone who’s not Indigenous the process and how to do that in a way that whitefellas are gonna understand, but I’ll be out on my kayak paddling sometimes and I can hear my old people singing and hearing the digeridoo. When I’m on the river fishing, I’ll be like, oh my god, I can hear my old people singing to me. There it is.

How’s that connection to culture developed as you’ve got older?

At school I was always too white to be black and too black to be white, so I’ve always been a bit conflicted growing up. And so, for me, it was really hard to accept that my skin isn’t going to be ever as black as my cousins’ or my uncles’ or my aunties’. But as I’ve grown up, all those little things, it’s like… how you grow the tree. It’s hard to explain how the tree grew, but I’ve always been watering the tree.

I want to talk about your art. Obviously, there’s a strong connection to culture with it, but how do you start a piece?

I literally just start. There are no ifs or buts. I don’t stencil anything… everything I do is by hand, and I just let it flow, always.

Looking at your works, you can see you can see the small detail, but you can see the big picture as well. Are you conscious of that as it happens?

Every line has a story and a meaning and a purpose. Have you seen the black and white Healing Spirit works that I do? So, when my grandmother passed away, she visited me in a dream and gifted me that artwork. So, everything that I paint is coming from somewhere and it’s been gifted. It has a story and a meaning, and it belongs somewhere. I was speaking to my cousin a couple of weeks ago about it and he was like, “I don’t know how to do it.” I said, “I just feel the old people flow through me.”

Your works are coming from an old place, but they’re landing in a new world. Do you see them as a bridge between the two?

Like, I grew up in the bush. We’ve always been bush. I didn’t know how to tie shoelaces till I was like 15. I’ve always felt so connected to Mother Earth and culture and I’ve always wanted to transform that in a way so people can understand it. But it took me suffering severe depression and to come out the other side of that to understand it and be able to give it a form that people get. That’s why I call my work contemporary indigenous art because I take these very strong spiritual feelings and these very ancient symbols and create this contemporary form that people can understand and relate to.

How should they look at it?

I just want them to look at it for what it is, not even like, as Indigenous art. Whatever it speaks to someone. I know what it will say to them. I know what it’s gonna say, but I just want people to see it for what it is because that’s good art, isn’t it? I believe in what I do so much that I know it’s gonna come across as powerful and beautiful and cultural.

Have you got a piece that holds most significance?

Probably the Healing Spirit pieces. Just because my grandmother came to me and gave them to me.

Where did your interest in art start with? It feels like it came more out of street art than traditional, classic forms.

You know, what I used to do was just kind of tattoo flashy… but it was just an expression of myself that I needed to release, and in time it turned into a cultural release. It was just making heaps more sense when I painted my culture. And this was at a time where I was like, fucking so depressed. Severely depressed.

So, your art pulled you out of it?

Connecting back with culture and sharing it helped. I love sharing. I was always brought up to, like, no matter what you have, how much or how little, just share everything and look after everyone. That idea extended to sharing culture, too.

Who are the artists you’re into?

At the moment, maybe Kyle Montgomery. He does these Mother Mary’s made out of crystal. Indigenous artists… maybe Jade Akamarre. Shawn Allen. He’s a Bundjalung man and a good friend of mine. We’ve been doing some collab pieces. I love his work. I love Barkaa the rapper, she’s amazing. Kobie Dee the rapper as well. I feel like at the moment, Indigenous hip hop is really making a change at the moment.

Who do you see as the important figures leading that conversation?

Within the Aboriginal community there’s different figures in certain areas, culturally. Certain people have a certain role to support and be who they have to be in those communities. But speaking broadly, I’d have to say someone like Nessa Turnbull-Roberts has always been a very staunch matriarch. I think she’s studying to be a lawyer at the moment. But who else? Again, for me I just always come back to black creatives. I just love Barkaa, I love Briggs, Dan Sultan. And all those people are doing the work beyond the lyrics. If you knew what they were doing behind the scenes, working with young Indigenous crew, it’s amazing. So good, but a lot of people don’t see that.

Do you feel people now see you in that same way? I laughed when you mentioned your son had asked if you were famous. You’ve always had a pretty low-key persona; how does it sit with you that you’ve got this profile now?

I don’t know. I still don’t think I do, really. I’m just doing what feels right. My community supports me, and that’s all that matters. My community and family will always support me, but I’ve always done what feels right. Yeah, I dunno, in the blackfella community you are who you are. For blackfellas, being famous… it’s not like that for us.

How’s the adjustment been to the art world and to city life? How are you going with navigating all that?

Oh, man. Yesterday, Louis Vuitton bought me into their store, and I fucking tried on all these crazy clothes. Like, $2000 shirts and shit because I’m going to a Louis Vuitton event tonight. Like, all I wanted was a fucking shirt. It was like a two grand for a collared shirt and they were like, “No, we want to dress you head-to-toe” and I’m like, “I’m just cool with the shirt, thanks. And I don’t like any of these jeans either. I just wanna wear the shirt.” They freaked out. “What do you mean you don’t want to wear our jeans? You don’t want to wear our jeans?” Nah, I’m just a fucking Koori kid not giving a fuck, really. I don’t buy into it, man. We grew up with no money, so us blackfellas we don’t care about that stuff.

One of the last big chats we had was around the time when that Surfing Life story came out. [In 2014, the magazine published a story describing Otis with a loaded racist term. The episode caused a storm and thrust Otis out front of the issue of racism in surfing]. How do you look back on that time now?

I think the surf community needed that to be honest. It was a wake-up call. It needed it. But at the same time, it shouldn’t have happened. I think it was a great opportunity for everybody to learn something.

You were suddenly a leading voice for black surfers, whether you’d chosen to be or not.

I mean, yeah, I suppose so. There’s always been guys like Andrew Ferg and all those fellas, but I guess back then there wasn’t social media and when things happened, they weren’t broadcast in the way that we can call them out now. But man, if something needs to be called out, I’ll call it out. That’s how people learn. It’s not in a way that’s out to get someone, it’s like, hey, this ain’t cool. And this is why I’ll always do that. If that’s my role, that’s my role and if I’ve created a space where that’s what I do and how people see it, that’s cool, whatever.

Looking at Australia generally, how do you see the last 10 years? Do you think we’re better in terms of acknowledging and understanding Indigenous culture?

Seriously, I think we’ve done great. But then you think we’re doing great, and you get Scotty Fuckhead come out and say to the Stolen Generation that we’ve said sorry, you guys now need to accept our apology. I just thought of my uncles from the Stolen Generation. Are you kidding me? These people are still alive.

Three steps forward, two steps back.

He’s putting it back on them. Bro, that’s not okay.

What did you make of Rio Tinto blowing up the Juukan Gorge? Turning a 46,000-year-old sacred site into iron ore to be sold to China.

Like, what the fuck went wrong there? And how was it legal?

You get a sense that White Australia increasingly wants to learn more and understand Indigenous culture, and they want to make peace with the past… whatever form that takes. But then you get these clear statements that the government and the big mining companies don’t want anything to change.

Yeah, I just think the Australian government wants to bypass all the cultural sensitivities and just sign a deal with China. At the end of the day that’s what it is. They’ll take their cheque and fucking deal with whatever comes after. That’s pretty much how it is.

In your work, you see a lot of young Indigenous kids. Do you kind of feel like they’re growing up with a better sense of culture than your generation had? Is it easier for them to connect?

For sure. Like at home, in my community, we’ve got the Gumbaynggirr Freedom School, where the kids are taught 50 per cent English, 50 per cent Gumbaynggirr language. It’s Year One to Year Three and is only 15 kids right now, but it’s growing. It’s full Gumbaynggirr. The school is incredible.

Does it give you hope?

Yeah, it does feel like the young Indigenous kids that I get to see around the place are pretty switched on. They got a foot in both worlds but that they really do understand where they’ve come from. I think today, there’s so many black role models that it’s easier for young kids to latch on to someone and learn. And a lot of schools are encouraging black role models to come in and do mentoring work and that’s great.

What do you reckon the rest of Australia needs to do to understand Indigenous culture better?

You could start by implementing cultural stories into school curriculums. Teach the kids that understanding of Country and culture and why it’s so important because we all benefit from that.

What did you do on January 26 this year?

Invasion Day? I went surfing. The waves were pumping.

Celebrating Australia Day feels like an idea from a couple of generations ago. How much longer do you reckon it’s got?

I reckon five or six more years at best. We’ll never move ahead while that’s there.

What’s next for you this year?

I’ll be down at Bells for the Indigenous titles in May. I’ve got a solo show at China Heights in August. Beyond that, not much. Just doing dad stuff… surfing and fishing. Me and Vaughany [SW’s Vaughan Blakey] have been talking about doing a movie for ages, but that might be one for next year. There’s plenty to tell. I’ve lived like six lives, ay. Fucking hell… it’s been fun though.