Most of us would say that art and sports don’t have much to do with each other – but I don’t think that’s true. While our intellectual self lives in the mind, our intuition lives in the body. This embodied self is the seat of creativity – and therefore of art.
On the surface, we tend to think of athletes as physical and not particularly creative, but stretching our physical abilities and challenging our bodies is a well-traveled path to creativity, and many athletes are also artists.
Renan Ozturk is known mostly as a climbing photographer and cinematographer and professional climber, but he describes himself as a “landscape artist at heart”, and his paintings provide a unique window into the eye of a mountaineer.
Baron Batch pursued a career in professional football before realizing that he was The Artist:
Gregory Porter is a hugely successful jazz musician who pursued an early career in football before finding his calling in music.
Jered Gruber is a cyclist and photographer whose images capture perfectly the free spirit of the modern cyclist:
Riikka Hyvönen is a roller derby skater and artist. Her unique painted and upholstered sculptures put us directly in touch with the bruises that derby girls collect:
Gou Miyagi is an incredibly innovative skateboarder who is developing new and unique ways of using his body and his board to create movement and imagery: