hk press release 2002

Press Release

CALIFORNIA PAINTER RETURNS TO HONG KONG FOR EXHIBITION

For Immediate Release

22 May 2002, Part Court, Pacific Place, Hong Kong;
In a world where art and sports often seem so very far apart, Gregory Burns proves daily that the two can co-exist on the highest levels. Mr. Burns is a world-class contemporary artist, whose paintings and exhibitions in Asia and the United States have received attention from former American and Singaporean presidents. He is also a world champion swimmer who has won gold medals and broken world records in the last three Paralympic Games.

A resident of Hong Kong from 1991 to 1995, Burns recalls painting at the end of his bed inside his tiny Causeway Bay apartment, “Until my move to Hong Kong, I never painted abstract paintings but starved for the natural landscapes that once fueled my art, I became frustrated. With no visual stimulus or subjects to paint, I began expressing emotions and feelings with Chinese brushes and paint. It was an opening into a whole new world”.

An exhibition of five series of works completed since Burns’ departure from Hong Kong, “Searching for Sanctuary” opens at Pacific Place on May 22nd and runs through May 26th. The exhibit will include works painted on location in China, Cambodia, Myanmar and Europe as well as works taken from Burns’ Masters exhibition and his swimming series. These works document a progression in the artist’s development over the past eight years. Burns has been traveling and abstracting Asia’s landscapes since 1984.

As Burns believes strongly in the potential of people with disabilities, a percentage of proceeds from the exhibition and its sponsors will go towards the work of two Hong Kong charities that are close to Burns’ heart. These charities include the Hong Kong Sports Association for the Physically Disabled, which Burns trained with prior to competing in the 1992 Barcelona Paralympics as well as Arts with the Disabled Association Hong Kong, which assists artists with disabilities.

Polio, a disease long considered eradicated, is what has made it possible for Gregory Burns to lead such a remarkably active set of dual careers. A child of U.S. Foreign Service parents, Burns contracted the disease while they served in the Middle East during the late 1950s. Since then, he has used crutches and braces to support his polio-weakened legs, which have carried him to gold medal podiums, mountain summits and backwater villages across the globe.

So Gregory Burns is, in fact, an old-fashioned hero. He is the sort of exemplary role model that one usually encounters only in Hollywood films, not in real life.

Though diagnosed with polio at the age of ten months, Burns began swimming at the age of three and painting at the age of six. According to the artist, "While Kennedy was President, by an interesting twist of fate, I was able to swim in the White House pool in Washington D.C. where I took my first swimming lessons and played Cowboys and Indians with the secret service. This was also the time when my creative streak led me to experiment with my mother’s red lipstick on the walls of our whitewashed townhouse." In 2000, while visiting former President Bill Clinton at the White House with fellow Olympians and Paralympians, Burns presented the President with one of his “swimming” paintings. Later, Burns was escorted to the White House Press Room and encouraged to look below the floorboards through a small portal where he instantly recognized the lime-green tiles of the long since drained White House pool.

Life for Gregory Burns is filled with ironies. Worldwide travel experience is one of those, because, as Burns notes, "I am more mobile than many folks because I've always had the urge to visit the unknown and do what others thought I couldn't accomplish. In fact, I find in more difficult to stay put." After graduating from university in California, he spent ten months in a Taiwan university studying Chinese painting, calligraphy and language. After completing his studies, Burns set off on a sixteen-month solo-backpacking trip that saw him traveling overland through China, Tibet, Nepal, India and Pakistan before returning to Taiwan to exhibit the paintings he painted en-route.

Thus far in his 22-year career as an artist, Burns has specialized in painting contemporary pieces abstracted from the landscapes and architectural images that he has observed on his extensive travels throughout Asia, Europe and the Americas. After more than eighteen years of living in Asia and exhibiting his artwork in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and Australia where he received his MFA, Mr. Burns now spends part of each year in his native Northern California where he trains for swim meets and paints with the characteristic intensity and vigor that has made him a world champion swimmer.

For more information about “Searching for Sanctuary” or Gregory Burns, please contact Iris Ng or Art de Vivre at (852) 2234-9123 or visit website: www.gregoryburns.com.


“Searching for Sanctuary” Painting Series Descriptions:

Yun Nan

During numerous journeys throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, I spent almost a year painting on location in many of China’s remote landscapes. In the summer of 1998, I traveled for several weeks throughout Yun Nan’s Li Jiang and The Stone Forest areas, resulting in the exhibition, “Old Villages and Stone Forests”. My faithful painting companion, Brother Joseph McNally, and I drank in the ancient buildings and landscapes of this timeless land while bantering with the curious local onlookers.

Li Jiang 1998

Sacred Sites

Since 1984, I have backpacked extensively throughout Asia, fueling my research into the religious and sacred sites of the East. Instinctively drawn to the region’s inspiring spiritual sanctuaries, I have sought spiritual understanding and insight through the act of painting. The body of work, “Sacred Sites” draws inspiration from my reflections on sanctuaries found in Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Japan and other Asian nations. Immersing myself in sacred Buddhist sites, I painted in and around stupas and temples in an effort to capture in paint the sanctity of these havens.

My experiences painting in these ruins instilled me with a sense of urgency as the unconscious hands of man and nature take their toll. Climbing narrow stone stairways into the sky, I stopped atop temples to allow the weight of the stone and struggle to dictate how I would paint. Inside temples where a thousand years ago people performed deeply spiritual practices, I participated in my visual form of prayer. Inspired by the magnitude of my surroundings, I painted until my fingers became hard with callus and the curious temple guards returned home.

Angkor Wat 2001

Traveling & Arriving

This body of work represents a journey and an artist’s search for places of sanctuary. The journey began in 1984 when I first arrived in Asia to study Chinese painting in Taiwan. Through the years, like the intrepid fishing vessel, I cast a wide net, traveling physical and spiritual landscapes, in search of spaces in which I could discover and actualize my potential. The exhibition, “Traveling and Arriving – In Search of Sanctuary”, represents a departure and an arrival. While expanding upon decades of realistic travel painting as well as themes steeped in Sung Dynasty landscape painting, this work seeks to embody the essence of moving and searching in a physical, spiritual and liquid environment. In the process, I trust that my art has arrived at a new destination.

Singapore 1999

Water Works

Water is my anchor. I have been swimming since I was three and my blood is mixed with chlorine and saltwater. Training for the Paralympics, surfing and scuba diving in the sea, all these fuel my feelings for water. Throughout my life, I have painted water and the landscapes where it flows. The paintings in this body of work attempt to express an intimate relationship with liquid environments and the strength and joy found there.

California 2000

Euro Rising

Reflecting on the beginning of this new voyage, I sense a maturity in my approach – hopefully, not to the negation of youthful exuberance. Yet I realize that I am entering Europe – the bastion of Western civilization – a place of mature ideas and icons. Entering this portal into tradition and fashion, I come seeking a vision into my own roots and the nature of those from whom I originate.

I seek a fresh approach looking forward onto a journey that will allow me views of historic sites with Christian, Celtic, Greek and Roman aesthetics. So let the Games begin - with an open slate and a hunger for whatever inspirations move me. March boldly forward and backward into time and further clarify my vision and voice as I wander with pencil and paint, seeking to touch the colossal and the sublime.

TG 942 Singapore to Rome, 2001