Byron Bay Surf Festival Art Show returns to Lone Goat Gallery for 2018 with a Otis Carey, Tim Kerr and Ozzie Wright, a trio of highly influential artists with wildly individual histories spanning avant-garde surfing, activism, DIY culture, collaborative street murals and hardcore, garage, folk & punk music.
These artists share little in common aesthetically, but they do share a Just Do It, DIY, Live It Now, free-form approach to creativity and collaboration, and all of them work at the highest levels across more than one arena of the arts – as pro surfers, visual artists, musicians, producers, designers, public artists.
Otis, Tim and Ozzie might best be described as human catalysts, and each of them play an inspirational and influential role in their fields.
OTIS CAREY
Gumbaynggirr - Bundjalung man Otis Carey is equally renowned for his unorthodox approach to high performance surfing as he is for visual art.
Otis infuses his own traditional indigenous culture with contemporary Australian surf.
“I paint contemporary indigenous art,” Otis says. “The way I can best explain it is, it’s a broken-down form of traditional symbols and stories that aren’t giving all of it away but just enough for people to understand".
"My Nan is from the Gumbaynggirr people and my Pop was from the Bundjalung people. My Nan was born in the dunes up at Red Rock, so we have very strong connections to the land and ocean up around Coffs. It’s always such an energising feeling coming back home for a few days after being away on a surf trip; it definitely keeps me grounded coming home. Whether I like it or not, that natural spiritual connection I have with the ocean and the land has been given to me as a gift through my heritage, and it’s something I embrace to the fullest and something I’m very proud of".
TIM KERR
Based in Austin Texas, Tim Kerr became involved musically and artistically with the early stages of the DIY (Do It Yourself) punk/hardcore/self-expression movement in the 1970's.
The idea that anyone could, and should participate in self-expression is key to Tim's approach to music and visual art. He was a founding member of influential bands The Big Boys, Poison 13, Bad Mutha Goose, Lord High Fixers and Monkeywrench that have made recordings for record labels Touch & Go, Estrus, Sympathy for The Record Industry, In the Red, Sub Pop, and Kill Rock Stars. Tim has also produced and recorded bands for all the labels above, both in the US and overseas. Journalists and critics have cited these bands as major factors in starting everything from funk-punk, skaterock, grunge, and garage.
Tim has exhibited in the US and abroad including PS1 New York, 96 Gillespie London, Slowboy Gallery Germany, Thirdman Records, Rosa Parks Museum, and Hyde Park Art Center Chicago. He has also painted murals in Texas, Nashville, New York, California, Montgomery and Arlington Transit's Art on The Bus program in 2010.
Tim was inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame by popular vote in 1996.
OZZIE WRIGHT
Australian professional surfer, artist, filmmaker and musician Ozzie Wright is renowned for his radical surfing innovation and punk rock aesthetic.
Like Egon Schiele, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Carl Sagan, David Suzuki and Banksy in a blender, Ozzie fuses graffiti, pop art, autobiography, cosmic psychedelia, eco-political activism and self-help into an eyeball-searing mix all of his own. Using every media available and painting anything that will stand still long enough, Ozzie's work has featured on innumerable surfboards, record covers, band flyers, a range of ready-to-wear fashion, and in art exhibitions worldwide. Most recently Ozzie staged a sell-out solo show at Byron Bay's own Spot of Genius gallery, alongside collaborative murals up and down the East Coast and across the Pacific in Hawaii.
Wildly prolific, Ozzie also creates artwork for his garage punk band The Goons of Doom. As bass player of the Goons, Ozzie mixes his surfing career alongside both his art and musical commitments. To date the Goons have released such cult classics as the EP Bikey Zomby (2005) the 16-track album The Story of Dead Barbie & Ghost (2007) and I Hate My Hair & I Want to Die (2008). The band have toured extensively in Australia, New Zealand and the USA