• Business

    ‘I went to New York first class. I spent it with the faith that there’d be more money’ – artist Kevin Sharkey on making almost €5m and losing it all

    AnyFans Posted on

    By Irish Independent

    Copyright independent

    'I went to New York first class. I spent it with the faith that there'd be more money' – artist Kevin Sharkey on making almost €5m and losing it all

    “In those years, I stayed in the George V [hotel] in Paris. I went to New York first class. I really had a great time spending that money,” he tells Katie Byrne on the latest episode of the Money Talks podcast

    “I loved it, but I spent it with the faith that there’d be more money. I was never going to sit on a suitcase of money out of fear.”

    Determined to get bigger and better, the artist invested much of his new-found wealth into his career, opening galleries and promoting his work.

    But when the 2008 financial crash sent shockwaves through the global economy, his fortunes took a sudden turn for the worse. Less than 10 years later, Sharkey was homeless.

    “Once you go broke and homeless, you realise life still goes on,” he says. “I went on the dole for a little while and I ate, and my dogs ate and it was okay. I didn’t have money to buy Jo Malone candles at that point. I didn’t have the luxury of, you know, really good bed linen at that point.

    “But the lesson for me was that money is temporary, life is temporary.”

    After ending up in a homeless hostel, Sharkey says he was more motivated than ever to turn his life around and start painting again. “What I remember about being in a homeless hostel, was all I was thinking about wasn’t, ‘how did I end up here?’ It was, ‘how the f*** do I get out of this place and never come back?’”

    The Dublin-based artist is now firmly back in business, with three galleries between Ireland and Portugal and a large client list. But his attitude to money hasn’t changed and he says he’s still determined to live every day like his last.

    “I never bought property. I don’t have a pension. I don’t have a big nest of savings. I’ve always just put the money I’ve made back into my career. And

    I’ve done that by painting, by getting better, by opening galleries. They don’t always work out. You don’t know till you try.”

    You can listen to the full conversation with Kevin Sharkey on Money Talks wherever you get your podcasts.

    The content of this podcast is for information purposes and does not constitute investment advice or recommendation of any investment product.

    You Might Also Like