Kyron Rathbone: Where The Wild Things Are

Outside of his home state of Tasmania, Kyron Rathbone first came to attention as a carefree charger at Shippies and Govs - one wave at the latter made two international magazine covers and still stands as the most picturesque wave shot there.

More recently, Kyron has switched to the other side of the lens and began making downhome surf films, plus other projects that showcase the Tasmanian outdoors.

While chatting about those films, Kyron surprised me with a photo of an oversize wooden octopus that he'd made. It wasn't a one-off, Kyron had made many creatures using the same technique.

I had no idea and this new development couldn't be ignored. We stopped talking cinema and started talking sculpture instead.

Swellnet: Your wooden sculptures are huge! Can I assume you started making smaller ones first?
Kyron Rathbone: That's exactly what happened. I first started making them about the time of COVID. I was back in Tassie after living overseas for many years, and I was planning on travelling and leaving again but got stuck in the lockdown.

My girlfriend at the time...who's now my wife, we built a little shack together out of recycled materials. At first I didn't really know what I was doing; I wasn't one of those guys on the tools growing up so I taught myself how to use various tools while working with all recycled materials. The house is an old horse stable actually.

I started banging together some art with the scraps and offcuts and the process started there. I was making some small pieces and selling them in a cafe. It was always a hobby. It wasn't until last year when I was in Namotu - I went to Namotu for a month - and I had this idea to make this giant octopus.

When I got back to Tassie I made it. I was like, 'Fuck yeah, this is sick.'

Namotu inspo

Were you working on Namotu or just visiting?
No, no, I work on Namotu. I couldn't afford to visit there, man.

Is that teed up with Gibbo [Stu Gibson]?
Yeah, Gibbo got me a gig there maybe twelve years ago. I've been a volunteer surf guide on Namotu all that time, but I'm a certified freedive instructor as well so I go there as freedive instructor, foil coach, kite coach, spearfishing...whatever. Anything that anyone needs kind of thing.

Well, that's all physical work but you also exercise your artistic side. Tell me about the artwork that hangs in the bar at Namotu?
Namotu's got a bunch of cool shit on the walls, right? They've got trophy fish and pictures and stuff, but there's a lot of things starting to be a outdated there. They're in the process of changing things - they're always updating anyway.

I was in there looking about and there was a spot on the wall in the bar. I thought to myself, 'Fuck yeah, that needs an octopus on it.'

I didn't tell anyone about this but I took my tools over for my next trip. So I went back for two weeks, with my tools, and I didn't let anyone know what I was doing. I snuck out into the maintenance shed with the boys out the back and asked if they had any timber that I could use. They had stacks of old offcuts and bits and pieces and I was like, 'Perfect.'

After that, I'd sneak out to the maintenance shed for a couple hours every day. No-one would know where I was, which was great, especially when the surf wasn't good or whatever. It took me about a week and I built an octopus. I brought it out one day and showed Ben Wilson [part-time Namotu manager] and he's just like, 'Fuck, hey.' 

He then messaged Geoff Doig, who's the manager of the island, and Doig is like, 'Tell Kyron to put it wherever he wants.'

So we ripped a couple of his fish pictures off the wall and put it front and centre in the restaurant. Then it went from there: I made two more pieces while I was there for that eight-week trip. I made a giant sea snake and a big tiger shark as well. All three of them went up in the resort.

I like the way you can see the grain consistently, it looks like foiled wooden fins. You're using plywood, right?
I am. That's the little secret. Bits of plywood. Sometimes plywood on top of plywood, different kinds of ply, but also other kind of timbers in there as well - I'm pressing them in between bits of plywood. That's where I'm getting the foiled fin look from.

It was a technique that I developed accidentally, and I mean, I'm sure there's other people doing similar stuff, but I was playing around with an old broken skateboard one day, and I started carving it back to make a shark fin and the grains appeared in lines. I was like, 'That's amazing. The lines just popped.'

So I got some plywood scraps and started experimenting. I've been drawing my whole life, and I've been drawing pictures that look exactly like what I'm creating in wood now. The plywood kind of makes it for you, if you know what I mean.

You just carve away and it pops out of the wood.

Kyron in his studio (Gibson)

Have you made a thylacine?
Yeah, actually I have, just a small one. Five years ago. I made one for my mum.

I imagine those stripes on a thylacine would look good in plywood.
Yeah I made it out of a broken skateboard. It had all the colours and it looked great. I'll definitely make a big one at some stage, though I've got a few orders on the go at the moment. I just got an order for a seafood restaurant in Los Angeles.

Really..?
Yeah, they want these big bream, a couple of big bream, for their Japanese New Year. It's their tradition that they eat these fish pancakes. A guy, I guest from Namotu, saw my work and said he'd love to commission some work. I just made a piece this week and I'll shortly send it all the way to LA, which is amazing. I'm so stoked.

How long does it take to make each piece? You mentioned a few weeks for the octopus. Is that standard?
Look, I would say they take about fifty hours total. It's a lot of carving, a lot of sanding, a lot of intricacies towards the final part, the fine-tuning and just getting all the curves right and everything.

When I began, I was pretty blasé about it all, just rough as shit. But not now. I want it to be right.

Bird life

Do you encourage people to touch them?
Yes! They feel so good to touch with your hands. Rub your hands over them; it feels different, they're just so... What's the word..?

Tactile?
Yeah, tactile. That's it. Most artwork you're not allowed to touch, but I tell people, 'Get your hands on it, feel it up.' I want to make sure every edge they touch, they're not going to get a splinter.

Do you visualise all those edges and contours before you start, or do you freestyle and whatever happens happens?
I have the outline in mind, depending on the creature that I'm making. So I'll have an idea of what it's going to look like, but sometimes you make a mistake, and then that turns into the feature of the whole piece.

Fifty hours is a long time. Do you connect with the pieces you make; give them pet names or whatever?
My connection...? Well, after about the first five hours, I pretty much want to burn every single piece.

I'm usually so over looking at it that I have to step away. Literally, I walk away, and then I'll go back in the morning and look at it again with fresh eyes, and I instantly fall back in love with it.

It's a love-hate relationship. You walk away from it five or six times in the process, and you need to give yourself space.

Well, that's the creative process, isn't it?
A hundred percent, man.

You're sick to death of it. You go do something else, but somehow you're still thinking about it the whole time.
You're not thinking about anything else. I have a saying, it's always six foot and offshore in the tool shed.

Some of Kyron's pieces are remarkably life-like (Gibson)

OK, your commission work has rolled on from people seeing your pieces. How do you go about getting work otherwise? Do you sell at markets? Have a website?
Not yet. Not yet. That's the next step. It's so fresh, Stu. It's literally been six months. Since I've started, I've always had two to three orders on the go, and I still do at this point. People ask if I'm doing markets but to be honest, I just don't have time.

If I start doing markets, I'm just going to have lots more orders and that means I'll probably not be able to go surfing or hiking or fishing or diving for another six months.

At the moment, it's happened organically and I'm really happy with that. Speaking of...I'm actually on the road right now. I'm just going to visit Torren Martyn. He's moved down to Tassie and he ordered a dolphin because his daughter's name is Naia which is 'dolphin' in Hawaiian.

I'm on my way to drop that off right now. I'll send you a photo.

Another happy customer

Regarding the time investment: I guess you need to take your time if you want your art to be high quality.
Exactly. And I feel that each piece is better than the last. I didn't have Instagram for years. My wife's like, 'You've got to have Instagram for your art,' so I've got on Instagram. Already I've been deleting a few of my earlier posts because I was like, 'Oh, no. I hate that piece now.' It's not representative; I feel like I've evolved so much.

It's funny. It's like musicians playing their old shit on stage. They must get so sick of that. My dad saw Metallica last year and he said that they didn't even play Enter Sandman. He was bummed. I'm like, 'Dad, imagine how many times they've played that on stage?'

Hard for an artist to move forward if your fans keep wanting you to play the old stuff?
Exactly. I want to get experimental, but getting too experimental might lose some followers or lose business, so I'm also trying to keep it balanced.

Have you had any other people who work in the field of timber sculpting connect with you?
I have. And many of them ask how I do it, which is great. Some people, especially people who don't know it's plywood, are like, 'How do you do that?'

A lot of people scratch their head but just can't even work out how it happens. But I mean, you can work it out if you look hard enough. You did.

What I've seen so far makes it look like you're on the set for Where The Wild Things Are. Will you continue with animals or can you see things moving elsewhere?
Well I just made a giant skull, one of those...What do they call it? A sugar skull, like a big Mexican sugar skull.

It'd look amazing hanging in a Mexican restaurant so I might hit up some Mexican restaurants and see if they want to commission a piece or something.

But yeah, I definitely want to open up what I can do. I have a lot of ideas. I want to do some real cosmic kind of stuff as well. Some planetary suns. And I'm actually working on a giant flower at the moment as well, like a giant sunflower.

After all this are you still going to have time to make your movies?
Yeah. I just love making them, and I'll keep making them regardless.

Check out more of Kyron's work on Instagram