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A portrait of Paralympian Tim Dempsey and sailing partner Gemma Fletcher is among 12 paintings being auctioned to raise funds for the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games, Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games and Paralympians of tomorrow.
The Spirit of Gold collection is a beautiful set of 12 portraits representing some of New Zealand’s most well-known summer and winter Paralympians and Para athletes. The portraits were painted during 2015 by well-known Kiwi artist, Amber Stephens. Amber kindly donated hours or her time and materials to create the portraits and then gifted them to Paralympics New Zealand.
The collection will be available to view one last time at the Royal Easter Show at ASB Showgrounds in Auckland between April 13-17 as part of the largest art show in New Zealand.
This collection toured the country in the build-up to the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, raising awareness and increasing understanding of Para sport. The tour stopped at 85 different locations with over 120,000 people seeing the portraits first hand and a media reach of over 5 million.
The Spirit of Gold Collection is now open for bids here and also includes the likes of Sophie Pascoe, Mary Fisher, Adam Hall and Corey Peters. Bidding is open until 8pm on April 17.
As a charity, Paralympics New Zealand rely on a mix of public donations, fundraising events, government funding and support from business to run their sport and community programmes.
Dempsey sailed at the London 2012 Paralympics and teamed up with Fletcher in 2014 for a tilt at competing at last year's Rio Paralympics. Fletcher discovered sailing only in late 2013 through Sailability Auckland and the following year won silver with Dempsey at Sail Melbourne.
