Art as a Journey of Self Discovery With Otis Carey

Before discovering art as a way to improve his mental health, Otis expressed himself through more physical mediums — which he shares with Urth Magazine. Like most kids his age, he spent his days running around with mates BMXing, spearfishing, and surfing but unlike most, he would become a pro surfer and, later, an acclaimed artist.

“My full name's Otis Hope Carey. I'm a Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung man and I live on Gumbaynggirr country, just south of Coffs Harbour. When I’m not painting or surfing, these days I'll be fishing. I’ve been fishing a lot the last few years and even picked up a fishing sponsor. I've got three kids too, so we're always outside running around. I feel very lucky to be able to live the way that I do and do the things that I can so freely.”

It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Otis. But as the saying goes, the rougher the seas the smoother the sailor and it was his struggle with mental health that led him to art and a deeper connection with his culture.

“I think like everything, as you grow older, you start to understand yourself better and that lets you express yourself in different ways. So for me, I only started painting in 2013 and it sort of just connected me more with culture. I've always been really connected to culture but when you understand yourself as a human and the way your brain and emotions work, you can then channel all of that. All those things needed to line up for the art to make sense for me.”

Sport was a natural and intuitive form of self-expression for Otis growing up. But it created some challenges too. He noticed early on that he was the only Indigenous kid playing soccer and footy and being different didn’t feel good.

“It sort of took a while for me to come out of my shell. I was always very proud to be Indigenous, but as a kid when you're the only one around that's Indigenous, it can be really challenging. Especially for your self-esteem. It took a long time but when I outgrew that, I really became in tune with my intuition and then it let me really channel myself into my art. For the longest time, surfing was a form of release and expression and connection. Gaggal’s the ocean – one of our clan totems on the Gumbanggir side. So that was always really important to me. But I struggled with my mental health for a long time.”

Otis moved to Sydney, continued surfing, and while working in warehouses for iconic 00s lifestyle brands like Ksubi and Insight, was inspired to pick up a paintbrush. At first, it was just an experiment to try and improve his mental health.

“I was always pretty depressed as a kid. It's not easy growing up Indigenous and being a part of an Indigenous family. So I started painting cause I needed something else – my spirit just needed something else. I was living in Bondi at the time and surrounded by so many creative people. I didn't really realize how inspired I was by these people and that just offered a different perspective on what I needed to do to make myself feel better. At first, art was just a way to support my mental health. And from there, I started to feel better, I was like, oh, wow, this is really making me understand my emotions and then helping me understand the connection to myself and my culture and my surroundings.”

Aside from some subtle changes to the way he moves the brush, Otis says he paints the same way now as when he first started but there have been two big changes to his art practice. He’s been painting for 10 years now and moved back to Gumbygannir country after he felt the calls from his people to return. But the biggest change to his art practice has been sobriety.

“I don't drink or do drugs anymore, so I've got a very clear channel to my intuition and to my spirituality now. I feel like I'm in a really good place with my art at the moment. It's just like I can sort of feel it flowing outta me.”

Otis’ work is created by and for his community. Every body of work has a significant story behind it and aside from his people and culture he says nature is his biggest inspiration.

“My biggest mentor is Mother Earth. When I sit by myself out on Country within the elements, I can hear our old people singing and telling stories. When I was still living in Sydney, for a good couple of years, I was having dreams, hearing old people singing in language, singing me home. If I'm working on a new painting, I always wanna make sure my old people are happy with it. I always consult with people in my community whenever I paint. I always make sure it's okay. The Ngalunggir miinggi work – the healing spirit – is about my grandmother. When she passed, she visited and spoke to my son. I was driving back from Grafton, where my grandmother lived, with my mum and dad and my son was sitting in the back. He was about five at the time and he started talking to someone. Mum asked who he was talking to and he said, “It’s grandma. She said she was safe. She made it home. She's in the water.” While that was happening, I was in the middle of painting that body of work. So that body of work is about our culture and the story of how we return to the water, our totem. So I feel like my grandmother gifted me that body of work.”

Being such an integral component of his work, Otis invests time and energy back into his community as much as he can. Driven by a desire to show his gratitude for the support that sets up his success, he’s also conscious of being an example for the younger generations.

“It's quite an honour to be in a position where people want to buy my art and they want to collaborate. By supporting my art, they're also supporting my community. All my art – that’s my community's art. That's my people. Everything I do is community driven. I want to lift up my community and culture. I'm always trying to help with fundraisers, fundraisers to raise money for mental health institutions. So a lot of what I do, a lot of the sales from artworks and collaborations that I do, I put the money back into the community at a grassroots level. I think it’s powerful for the next generation of kids to see what’s possible. We all get to hang out and they all see me as me, and I see them as them. No one's better than anyone else in our community, we're all in it together.”

Otis’ journey with art has helped his mental health, it’s deepened his connection with his culture and is a way to express his lived experience as an Indigenous kid growing up feeling different. And his solo shows are a powerful way to share that with other people and start important conversations about Indigenous culture.

“When I see my art, I see a lot of myself as a child and, cause I grew up in the bush the first couple of years of my life in like a self-sufficient house, every time I look at my work — it's those times as a kid that have come out in the artwork. This is the one thing I love about solo shows. I have people come up and ask about the art and then I give them an explanation of the art and where it's from. And 95% of the time, the conversation branches off into something else and you can tell people asking the questions want to learn more about Indigenous culture. So it's a great way to create those conversations. The biggest lesson art has taught me is that we all have our own lived experiences and we should try not to judge someone for the way they react or what they've done. Cause we, we just don’t know their lived experiences. And art is a great way to share your experience.