COLLISIONS IN TIME - 2024/06/22

OSCAR WRIGHT

Oscar Wright, Oz, Ozzie Wrong. Whatever the enigmatic surfer/artist/musician that hails from South Narrabeen in Sydney calls himself, you can be sure that he’s somewhere smiling and laughing with friends, creating anything and everything that he feels like at the time.

I met Oz for the first time at Narrabeen beach back in the late 90’s and after watching him tear apart a fun beach break, and having not really seen much exposure of him, I immediately spoke to a friend I had about the possibility of getting him a better deal with a smaller brand for him to grow. We became pretty good friends in the following years, travelling and shooting and hanging out all over the globe and his profile grew immeasurably.

We haven’t hung out for many years, our paths taking us in different directions and with his popularity as an artist growing, his surfing being some of the funnest on show and the formation of the Goons of Doom, Oz was on a role. Freesurfing and partying his way around the world.

Cut to the present day and my assignment to shoot some profile pictures for a Surfing World editorial and I am driving to his new property on the north coast of NSW. I was excited to see my old friend, for sure, and with much life experience shared early, and much life experienced with limited contact, we had many things to catch up on.

I arrive to Oz sweeping the floors, readying his place I thought for the photos we were about to shoot. This however would later be revealed as the wrong assumption. He greats me like you would expect from friends that have been distant for some time, although he does say that I don’t look any different. I quip back with ‘nice, so you’re saying I’ve always looked fucking old!’ and we laugh.

As with anyone in this world, Oz has been through his ups and downs. His recent split from his partner and mother of their children took its toll and we discuss how the effects of separation and relationships ending have an impact that can be debilitating. Having been through a similar thing years earlier we connected on the issue and it felt quite cathartic.

We briefly discuss old times and what’s been happening recently and Oz has just returned from Indonesia, and more specifically Desert Point, one of the waves I could say is among my favourites and possibly responsible for my deep love of left hand down the line barrelling waves.

Our conversation turns back to relationships and Oz drops a little bomb that he actually has a woman that he had recently met coming to hang out at 12, and I realise that we don’t have a lot of time to get these images done. I joke with him that I thought it was a bit overboard for him to be so thoroughly cleaning just to shoot a few editorial images, and he laughs and says the motivation to get things sorted was definitely not my visit.

We take a tour of his place and we discuss how the space works for him and what he wants to do with it if he stays there. It’s an eclectic space that seems to suit his personality and he chuckles as he shows me the two kitchens that are literally side by side. We tour into the backyard where I joke about my favourite part of the house being the dilapidated Hills Hoist.

Oz is in a good mood, despite certain things that have bought him down of late, and the energy is as high as I remember from him when we were younger, although I wonder if the impending date has something to do with it. He shows me the board shack, the experimental lab, and he tells me about his banana trees and how he is learning about how to harvest them.