Known as “The Olympic Picasso,” modern artist Roald Bradstock has built a reputation for being a relentless competitor on the track and in his art studio. Bradstock will unveil his latest work “Paris 2.014/Together” in a special live event on his Instagram page, which can be followed here, on Thursday, December 1, at 11 a.m. CST.

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The piece commemorates the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Paris, France, and is the fifth in a Bradstock series of Olympic Rings paintings. In addition to commemorating the Paris Games, the piece also recognizes the 25th anniversary of Bradstock’s first Olympic Rings painting,” Struggle for Perfection,” that launched his art career. That piece won the United States Olympic Committee/United States Sports Academy Art Competition in 1999 and was later exhibited at the International Olympic Committee museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Bradstock, a two-time Olympian in javelin for England, was the Academy’s 2003 Sport Artist of the Year, and some of his works are on display at the American Sport Art Museum and Archives (ASAMA) on the Academy campus in Daphne, Ala.

“I am approaching this project with the same physical and psychological mindset I do as an athlete,” Bradstock said. “I push my creativity to the limit, just as I have done with my body as an athlete and continue to do now as a masters’ athlete. My studio is a laboratory, and I experiment with new techniques in a variety of media.”

In 2003, Bradstock was honored as Sport Artist of the Year, painter, by the Academy for his unique art style that promotes athletics and for his efforts to unify the Olympics and Paralympics.

“The Academy helped me realize that sport and art are indeed connected,” he said. “Once I realized that, my career took off. And now I’m helping to spearhead events like the ‘Olympic Art Project’ and rekindling these old ideas for a new generation.”

In 2016, Bradstock was appointed executive director of the Art of the Olympians (AOTO), which funds programs that meet and foster its mission of developing art, education, sport and cultural outreach programs to inspire individuals – particularly youth and their communities – to uphold and promote excellence and the highest ethics of humanity.

Bradstock, nicknamed the “Olympic Picasso” by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) because of his ideas of connecting sport and art, is a professional artist with a distinguished career of international competition in javelin. He represented Great Britain at the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games.

Famous for his sense of humor to increase awareness of athletics and especially of the Olympics, Bradstock has worn colorful outfits and has engaged in demonstrations of throwing various objects other than the javelin, such as golf balls, iPods, phones, and even fish – at the annual Flora-Bama Mullet Toss on the Florida-Alabama coastal border.