A talented adventure artist giving back to his community in Kinsale was hailed by Dolly Parton as having a god given gift.
Internationally acclaimed Cork adventure artist Philip Gray has painted masterpieces under water in caves in China and atop of volcanoes in Iceland.
Philip, 60, told the Irish Mirror, he used lockdown to give back: “I prefer to call it Locked up, most of my work goes to the UK so overnight 90% of my work was wiped out.
“In a sense you need to reinvent yourself, but start thinking more locally, I was better known in the UK, I wanted to help the Kinsale community.”
As the world’s first diving artist, his skill set is particularly unique.
He said: “When I’m underwater, I can’t use a brush but I use a pallet knife, a shaker and a kitchen sponge to paint.
“I used to be a navy diver and loved adventure. I said I wonder would I be able to combine the loves of my life and encapsulate them into one.
As one of the pioneers of adventure art in the world, Philip explained how initially it was no easy fate.
He said: “I was possibly one of the first to initiate the underwater art, I had to retrain in breathing underwater as I had to go so deep.”
It was Dolly Parton who first introduced Philip to using art to help charitable causes.
He said: “I was out at Dollywood at her theme park, she said what are you doing with your art you’ve been given a God given gift you need to give something back.
“It was Dolly who embarrassed me into working with charities and giving back.
“Each year her theme park does festivals of the nations and I was chosen to be the artist to go out.
“Dolly put a mark on one of my paintings and I created it from there and so I presented it to her.”
Struck by the level of community spirit in Kinsale during lockdown, Philip was compelled to donate his art work, creating an original oil painting of Kinsale harbour titled, “Community Spirit.”
He said: “The chamber of commerce put together a comeback campaign for Kinsale and we were probably the first town to start planning who we were going to spring the town back into action.”
Philip has created an original painting of Kinsale harbour titled ‘Community Spirit’ and hand produced 95 limited edition prints for sale to support tourism and business in Kinsale , anyone purchasing the prints is in with a chance of winning the original painting valued at €8000.
Kinsale is a wonderful holiday destination and is known as one of the safest places in Ireland to holiday.
There are still a limited few editions available : www.philipgray.com.
