The last time I counted there were exactly 1,964,640 GoPro cameras in the world, and each of those little black boxes is out there documenting waves in ultra high definition. A plethora of visual information is recorded and uploaded. Nothing escapes notice, or so it would seem.

Henry Jock Walker documents the surfing experience using somewhat different means. With a paintbrush between his teeth he paddles into waves, whips out a canvas and records, in his own inimitable way, the event. It's surf art, perhaps the purest of its kind.

Jock is a practitioner of live ephemeral performance and he ain't limited to surfboards. He'll rock up to country towns and start splashing the paint around giving open access to his canvasses. And if you look beneath the layers of paint you'll see there's a message among Jock's fun loving madness: collaboration is not just important, it's imperative. In Jock's world community is everything.

After spending four weeks bouncing around the Eyre Peninsula, Jock recently landed on the Coal Coast north of Wollongong. He's taken up residency at The Egg & Dart gallery in Thirroul for a project dubbed The Scrambled Egg & Dart Experiment.

On the night Swellnet met with Jock he was busy in the studio. We weren't alone, a group of local folk had joined us and Jock was pressing brushes into their palms getting them acquainted with colour and canvas. As they absorbed themselves in art we took our leave, grabbed a (green) egg and bacon roll, and rolled tape.

Swellnet: Have you always been known as Jock?
HJW: Well my first name is Henry but it's a family tradition to be called by your second name.

What's your Dad's name?
William John. But he's called John, no-one would even know his real name is William. I call myself Jock but people get surprised when they find out my real name is Henry.

And where are you from?
South-east of South Australia.

Meaning...?
Meaning Keith.

I've never heard of it.
It's in between Mt Gambier and Adelaide. But when I was young we moved up to McLaren Vale, a bit closer to the surf, and it's where I still live now.

You spend a bit of time out on South Australia's other coasts.
A lot. I'm always doing far west missions, Yorkes missions, Victor too.

You're currently working as a performance artist but you have a fine arts background.
Yeah, I thought art school would be a way of getting some kind of creative job within surfing, like maybe it could lead to surf photography. But instead I got exposed to contemporary art, got excited about that, and went on a completely different tangent. Although I'm making stuff that's related to surfing, so art school served it's purpose in some way.

What's your relationship with modern surfing? Surfing can be corporate, commodified, conformist. Do you get down on it sometimes?
Well yeah....though I feel that surfing's getting so big I feel that there are some subcultures within the subculture. There are pockets of creativity happening. I feel like this coast is one of those places, and that was why I was excited about coming back here.

In Thirroul there seems to be a lot of young people involved in surfing but also doing lots of creative things alongside their surfing. It's created a real good community where people help each other and make some really cool art.

There are similar pockets of creativity happening all around the world. Think about Matt Yeates and his glassing, or the things happening around Byron Bay....or Cronulla! When I did a lap around Australia I stopped in at Cronulla and I was surfing out at Wanda with one other dude. I was out there with a small canvas trying to do a painting and he came straight up to me and said “What have you got your iPhone out here for, mate?”

I told him what I was doing and then asked him about his board, 'cause he was riding a pretty wacky shape himself. He asked me to come by his shaping bay...

Who was it?
Grant Carverly. I went and hung out with Grant and spent 2 or 3 days there. That was in 2013 and last year I came back to do a project in Woolloomooloo, and part of that was working with Grant and also Greg Hodge [local painter]. That was the stepping stone to meeting Aaron [Fell-Fracasso - owner of The Egg & Dart gallery] and the crew on this coast.

The connections you make...
Yeah. A chance meeting leads to this. Thing is, we were talking about the surf industry, and Carverly is part of it but he's running his own race, he's not publicised, but he's doing some really creative stuff with boards. He's doing so much cool stuff. He just makes surfboard after surfboard after surfboard. He sells a few of them, enough to get by, but he's probably got 300 surfboards in there! So many experiments. I love that.

One of your favourite things is to paint while your surfing. You even went out this morning to do some painting. Can you explain it for us?
I'm making abstract paintings while I'm surfing. So it's recording the performance in a way.

Do you make any effort to recreate, say, the curls of the wave? Or is it something else entirely?
I think part of the reason I like doing it is because it's such a challenge just to get the paint and the canvas out there and back to shore. And it eliminates those contrived decisions about where to put things on a canvas. That's what attracts me to doing those processes. It starts becoming more about surfing than painting because you have to concentrate on that or you fall off.

Is there any aspect of it that you consider performance. Because, no offence, but it looks a little unusual: a man standing atop a surfboard with canvas in one hand, brush in the other.
Yeah, massively. I like performing in places where contemporary art isn't usually done. Where it's totally out of context.

And what's the usual reaction when people see you doing it?
The reactions are one of the best things about it. In an art gallery it's hard to get conversations going but when you're doing stuff out in public – on a beach! - people are pretty open. They'll come straight out and start talking to me about it. Grant Carverly is a good example but almost every time I do it people ask what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. It creates very real conversations.

And it gets people thinking about art.
Hopefully it gets people thinking about creativity. I hope it does. It's fairly extreme though, it's hard for people to relate to but that's good, it makes more room for things in between.

An obvious difference between performance art and, say, visual art, is that with painting or sculpture something tangible is created. A person can take something away with them. What do you hope people will take away from your performance art?
I think art is pretty important. It's obvious the government doesn't see it the same way and I think that will be detrimental to Australia in the long run. But I like the idea of doing things in the real world and having lots of social engagement so we can close the gap. It's a political move in a way.

You've travelled around to many countries towns. Places that I wouldn't have thought would be receptive to your experimental art. How do you convince them that you're worth showing?
I just kinda rock up and start doing stuff...ha ha. It's all pretty DIY. That's what I did first of all and now I get invited to lots of places.

I grew up in a small country town and there wasn't much opportunity to do anything creative. It was very taboo for a male to do art. You know, you've gotta play football and work with dad on the farm. When I do those things in country towns it helps some kids see that there are other possibilities. Other ways to express yourself. And if they're liking that then I could be a role model for them.

So that's one thing you might like your art to achieve?
Well it's all very abstract but that's an outcome I'd like to think is possible.

Over the next few weeks you'll be working out of a corner of the Egg & Dart called Jock's Box People can come by, watch it, and you're hoping they'll participate...?
Yeah, there's lots of levels of engagement. People can just watch, they can hang out, or if they want they can pick up a paintbrush come in the Jock Box and get dirty.

You can catch Jock on the Coal Coast and Sydney:
Thursday 21st, 7am - Surf painting session at North Thirroul Beach. All welcome, BYO surfing gear. Followed by colourful scrambled eggs.
Friday 22nd, from 10.30am - Scrambled eggsperiment in Sydney. Location to be confirmed on Henry's Instagram: @henryjocks.
Saturday 23rd, from 11am - Surfboard and mural painting with scrambled eggs at Finbox, Thirroul. 
Sunday 24th, 10.30am - Morning surfing painting on the Coal Coast.
Monday to Thursday 25th-28th, 9-5 everyday - Egg & Dart performance residency - Scrambled Eggsperiment from 10am each day (free colourful scrambled eggs)
Friday 29/7, 6-9pm  Main event at the Egg & Dart gallery. Live music, art, and more colourful scrambled eggs!