From 8th to 27th December 2026, artist Gregory Burns is joining COMO Cocoa Island as artist-in-residence. Here, we speak to Burns about his creative process.
Gregory Burns is an award-winning abstract painter and Paralympic athlete who channels the same passion into his art as he did while setting four world records in swimming in three Paralympic Games.
“I’ve always felt there’s more to life than the status quo,” says American painter and athlete, Gregory Burns, speaking from his studio in Singapore. The words are characteristically matter-of-fact, delivered by a man whose extraordinary drive has taken him from Paralympic podiums to Ironman competitions, global travel, decades living in Asia, and ultimately a full-time career as an artist.
“My parents raised me like anyone else. I was never labelled as a ‘disabled person,’” he says. “So I never stopped to think, oh, I shouldn’t do that. I was always pursuing what I wanted to do.” In his youth, that meant baseball, football, lawn games — any chance to test his limits. Burns adapted where necessary, pushed where possible, and the external encouragement that followed (“people would look at me and say, wow, isn’t that amazing”) added its own momentum.
But even as Burns’ athletic life accelerated, a parallel passion was quietly forming. A college life-drawing class, with its shock of a live model and the immediacy of figure work, “galvanised” his artistic direction. By the mid-1980s, restless with the “same old status quo” culture of California, Burns made a leap that would shape the rest of his life: a move to Taiwan.
“It was trial by fire,” he says — a humid, concrete jungle; lodgings in a bare room above a market, and a fear that he had made “the biggest mistake” of his life by choosing Taiwan while passing up a scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute. But soon it “clicked”. During the five years he spent in Taiwan, Burns studied Chinese brush painting, calligraphy and seal carving under renowned art teacher Liang Dan-fong — a mentorship that shaped both his technique and his worldview. “That’s how I transitioned into Asia,” he says. “And it’s been 40 years.”
Today, Burns has held 80 exhibitions worldwide in 15 different countries. His work reflects a deep connection to diverse cultures while portraying the resilience of the human spirit. He paints with the same physicality that powered his athletic training. “It’s the same self,” he says; “Chinese calligraphy and abstract impressionistic painting are about channelling your spirit through the body and the brush. When I paint, I have the heart of an artist and the body of an athlete: very physical, raw and authentic.” His canvases become extensions of “motivational messages that I need to hear myself” he adds: “faith to carry on. Going without knowing all the answers. One step at a time.”
I never have a predetermined idea, I want the imagery and stories of the sea to reveal themselves naturally. It takes a while to be grounded in a place and go, okay — what does it feel like here? The island and the environment will inform everything.
The sea is where Burns’ two worlds — art and movement — meet most powerfully. “On land, gravity is my enemy,” he explains. “In water, I’m floating. I can do somersaults. The water is my medium; a sanctuary that’s given me peace.” Night swimming has become a ritual for Burns, and the underwater world is a place of inspiration: manta rays spiralling in feeding frenzies, whale sharks emerging from the blue, swirling coral gardens. In the Maldives he recalls the wonder of swimming in a “smorgasbord” of marine life that “coasts within centimetres of you but somehow never touches you. It’s magic.”
This instinctive, sensory responsiveness will shape Burns’ upcoming ‘From Sea to Self’ residency at COMO Cocoa Island. Although he has painted in island settings before, Burns is arriving with no fixed concept. “I never have a predetermined idea,” he says. “I want the imagery and stories of the sea to reveal themselves naturally. It takes a while to be grounded in a place and go, okay — what does it feel like here? The island and the environment will inform everything.”
Throughout his residency, guests will be invited into the process — to watch him work, sketch alongside him, ask questions. Burns is accustomed to painting publicly, whether in London hotel lobbies or on the backstreets of China. “Sometimes I’m in the zone; sometimes I’m interacting with the public,” he says. “It really depends on the audience. These residencies give people a chance to get up close and personal.” He grins: “Hopefully they don’t get any paint on them — I have been known to splatter a bit.”
For Burns, creation is a dialogue between instinct, memory and place. “I’ll start with a blank canvas, then add some colour and strokes to make some intervention,” he explains. “It’s then a conversation. I do something, and then I respond to it. There’s never a roadmap.” Some pieces come together relatively quickly; others take weeks. “Sometimes the less time I spend on a piece, the better it is. Don’t overwork it.”
He describes painting as “a kind of surrender” to the present — an approach guests will witness firsthand. “It’s a whole soup of experience: the way the air smells, the wind, the people participating, the rain, the swim you just had and the sea life you just witnessed.” For guests participating in his workshops, the learning goes beyond technique and shapes their lifestyle. “Painting has taught me I should meditate more,” Burns says. “Focus more. Be in the moment and there will be authenticity. I know what’s healing for me.”
Gregory Burns’ ‘From Sea to Self’ artist-in-residency at COMO Cocoa Island will take place from 8th to 27th December 2026. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To see more of Gregory Burns’ art, visit www.gregoryburns.com.
