Pushing boundaries through art
Former paralympic champion, Gregory Burns, who now travels the world as a residential artist helping needy children talks to Yomal Senerath-Yapa
In a small room deep in the recesses of the sprawling Shangri-La Colombo, artist and paralympic champion Gregory Burns is guiding young people to expand their horizons. The ten children he is mentoring are solemnly bent over their canvases, fingers thick with watercolours as they go beyond the familiar parameters, exploring new worlds.
Gregory knows that art has a lot to teach. The most important lesson for him, however, was that it prodded him and said, “it is OK to go on without knowing all the answers”. All of us have known at one time or the other the paralyzing effects of indecision, doubt and fear that make us immobilestopping us from doing anything. But art teaches that once you make a start at any one point, you can go on, figuring the rest of it along the way. After that it is merely a question of deciding “when the work is done”.
As a victim of polio, Gregory was barely two when he was paralysed waist down, but a triad of overriding passions- art, sport and travelling- ensured he progressed ahead and had as full a life as anyone able bodied.
Gregory is in Colombo as Shangri-La’s first artist-in-residence, where he will be committing to canvas the island idylls that fascinate him while doing workshops for children and adults and several CSR projects to benefit the needy.
Most of his life was spent travelling as his father was part of the diplomatic corps. The travel bug could have bitten him anywhere from Jerusalem to France when a toddler. Travelling was one thing that shaped him early apart from Polio. The latter he calls a ‘two-edged sword’ with pluses and minuses but “more pluses than minuses”.
“People tend to open up to those who are disabled. So I have had a lot of opportunities I think because of the disability- though I lost a lot of them as well.”
Gregory’s mother ensured he was kept busy and encouraged, while he had art and sports tutors who prompted him towards success. One was the sports teacher at the International School of the Hague who made him the manager of the baseball and basketball teams despite his external limitations.
Gregory had a glittering career as a sportsman. As a competitive swimmer he represented the US in the 1992 (Barcelona), 1996 (Atlanta), and 2000 (Sydney) Paralympic Games, winning two gold medals, two silver medals, and one bronze medal. He broke five world records in Paralympic swimming and completed the 2006 Korea IronMan race and the Singapore Half-IronMan races four times.
The 1996 Atlanta Paralympics was a defining moment of his life, winning three medals with his parents and future wife Angie cheering him on- on home ground, moreover- America, where he could only spend two thirds of his life.
For Gregory and Angie, travelling is meditative and spiritual. Far from the madding tourism, they find solace in isolated sacred places of the rural world. Favourite places include Angkor Wat, Laos, Anuradhapura, Dambulla and Mihintale. He absorbs the calm, peace and energy of these ancient sites. They have also written three travel books, capturing experiences that would inspire readers with tales of remote people and places.
“Mountain tops, beaches, the ocean, nature- these also have shaped me,” he says.
Brushes while travelling with different spiritual traditions, such as Buddhism and Taoism, inspire him deeply.
As a motivational speaker for the corporate sector he is quite busy. He says his particular method involves “telling stories about experiences whether in art or sport or travel or working, where I try to connect with audiences and try to relate some of their challenges to those that I had to face, and try to give them my perspective on how to overcome those challenges.
“Loosely speaking it’s about overcoming or going beyond limitations. I try to give people different perspectives on some of their problems.”
Gregory jokes that he is Robin Hood in that he gives back what money he gets from the corporate sector as a speaker to the needy, especially needy children, by holding workshops for them or selling paintings on their behalf. The money from the paid workshops also go towards children’s charities. He has previously been artist-in-residence at the ShangriLa Tokyo and Shangri-La Maldives.
Though they do not have children, Angie and Gregory’s love for those they ‘get for the day’ (participants at workshops) light them up.
At the Shangrila propped against the room where the children paint is Gregory’s own art. He has intuitively captured scenery that embodies the island: water buffaloes sleepily wallowing as storks peck about in the yellow paddy; the reclining Buddha statues of ancient temples, a profile of a tame elephant. One of the places that had particularly impressed him with its hallowed spirituality is the mountain monastery of Mulkirigala, with its dark ancient caves and statues.
Gregory is described as an abstract impressionist. He does some abstract expressionism as well- but he wants his art to be understood- “the public wants imagery so they can easily connect”- and so sticks to impressionism rather than the often bewildering subjectivity of expressionism.
Consequently his abstract works can be appreciated by anyone: the aquamarine and turquoise visions of the Maldives as seen by a bird, or the arid architectural beauty of Rajasthan or Morocco- beautifully hazy like mirages in a desert.
Asia, and particularly East Asia, is where this self-confessed Sinophile feels most at home. A small boy, one of his first memories is dipping into the Encyclopedia Britannica and falling in love with the art depicting ancient Chinese courts- with the emperor and the mandarins in all imperial splendour- and of course the calligraphy born of abstract brush strokes. Later he would be lulled by the Chinese landscape paintings with their dreamy stylized emerald mountains, waterfalls and willows. He would go to Taiwan to study Chinese painting & calligraphy and history. “I went there in 1984, and I am still not done with it,” he says.
It is from Chinese art that he borrowed the art of perspective in drawing: looking up, looking straight or looking down. Most of his paintings are from a bird’s eye perspective. In his abstract landscapes the world mostly undulates as if from a plane window, from varying heights and angles. He owes a lot to the Chinese aesthetics.
It was Angie, his companion and wife for 20 years, who urged Gregory to start using an iPad. After a lot of ‘purist’ and technophobic hedging he relented, and was to discover the sheer facility of creating digital art, even if he might be stuck in a desert island. He now undertakes unique mixed media artworks commissioned by clients to celebrate friendships or family bonds.
Gregory hopes he could bring more hope to the world with all that he does. In a world where the press feeds the world with stories of misery and scandal or negative tales, he strives to give hope“even if it is in a small quiet voice.”
As he jumps to his feet using his crutches at the end of our interview, I am more impressed with his selfless concern for humanity- even more than with his astonishingly indomitable spirit and courage that ‘took him places’ and gave him a big, fulfilling life- so much bigger than your average.