Creativity has been Matt Ottley’s salvation – but for the artist, composer and children’s book author, it has come at a terrible price
Up a steep road to the top of a ridge, all the mundane falls away.
‘The tree came out of one of my own psychotic experiences where I thought I had something growing inside me.’The story follows a boy who, like Ottley, sees things differently. “His gift showed him things so beautiful they made him cry. But it also tormented him with the pain of others that made him feel numb,” it reads. The narrative unfolds around the metaphor of a tree growing inside him: its flower is ecstasy, its fruit is sadness.
As we sit on his terrace overlooking the natural vista, freshly baked muffins are placed on the table by Ottley’s partner, Tina Wilson. Ottley is a gentle man, delicate and kind of beatific with long white hair. One of the country’s most popular author-illustrators, he has worked on more than 40 titles – among them last year’s prime minister’s literary award-winning kids book How To Make A Bird, written by Meg McKinlay.But he says the scope of his creativity has come at a terrible price.
Ottley spent the first 11 years of his life in Papua New Guinea at a time when the country was becoming increasingly dangerous for Australians. When he was nine he was sexually assaulted by a man, a trauma he believes may have triggered a genetic predisposition to“The way it’s explained to me is that you basically inherit a number of genes that – when they are switched on – you start to experience the illness. It can be trauma that switches those genes on.
The Tree of Ecstasy and Unbearable Sadness had its genesis in two periods of illness. During a severe episode in 2010, Ottley lost the ability to understand speech. But music was “crystal clear,” he says, “so I started writing music”. work for adults and children; a luminous, intense and ultimately beautiful journey through the stages of psychosis, and out the other side. “I wanted to create a metaphorical experience that goes straight to the emotional centres, to give people a visceral experience of what it feels like,” Ottley says.
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