Meet the artist whose job is to paint beach volleyball at the 2024 Olympics
He calls himself a “troglodyte” with his brushes, oil paints, and large canvas among photographers with expensive cameras and long lenses
PARIS (AP) — He calls himself a “troglodyte” with his brushes, oil paints, and large canvas among the photographers with expensive cameras and long lenses. They're all aiming to capture beach volleyball during the 2024 Olympic Games, but their approaches are quite different.
“It’s a collage of moments,” says 63-year-old British painter Peter Spens about his art. While the photograph is about a specific moment, “the painting brings back the spirits of the event.”
These are Spens' third Summer Olympic Games, which the International Volleyball Federation has commissioned him to paint. While photographers manage to produce hundreds, if not thousands, of photos over numerous days of competitions, he will have only one image — a painting.
“We’re so used now as a society to phone images, and everyone takes thousands of images daily,” he says. Instead, he tries to focus on the reality and express his perceptions through his brush.
