Filipino Olympic swimmer René 'Guy' Concepcion makes a splash in Paris 2024 as Olympian artist

His fellow artists include France’s Luc Abalo (painting) and Enzo Lefort (photography), Britain’s Annabel Eyres (paper cut and collage), America’s Grace Latz (multimedia and fiber art), Canada’s Brooklyn McDougall (painting), and Australia’s Clementine Stoney Maconachie (sculpture).

For the exhibit, Guy created five mixed media collages, which the Olympics website describes as “brightly colored, dynamic, and textured,” seeking to “create connection and joy and celebrate life.”

The entries are titled “Beyond the Box,” “Host City,” “Producer,” “Courage,” and “Slides and Ladders.”

“It’s a thrill and honor for me,” Guy told PhilSTAR L!fe on a video call.

“When I was a swimmer, I always felt that my main goal was to represent my team at the highest level,” he said. “I am so happy to bring the Philippine flag up high again through art.”

Early swimming career

Concepcion, now 55, was born in San Francisco in California but was raised and lived mostly in the Philippines. He learned to swim at a very young age, taught by his mother at their home pool.

Sports columnist Joaquin Henson—in a 2016 The Philippine STAR piece about Guy and his brother Lee Concepcion, who’s also a swimmer—noted that Guy spent his elementary years at La Salle Greenhills then went to Junipero Serra High in San Mateo for high school. He swam for the school with All-American honors, the country’s award for outstanding athletes, and also played water polo.

Guy had several achievements in swimming growing up. He won bronze at the 1979 Southeast Asian Age Group Championships in Kuala Lumpur. From 1979 to 1986, he won 34 golds, eight silvers, and two bronzes in seven SEA Age Group competitions. In 1984, the 15-year-old Guy set national records in the 200- and 400-meter individual medley.

Guy also bagged one gold, six silvers, and eight bronzes at the Southeast Games in 1983, 1985, and 1987. He joined the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul before the Olympics there two years later.

Following his stints in Seoul, Guy won two golds, two silvers, and two bronzes at the Asian Age Group Championships in New Delhi in 1994.

After about three decades of swimming, Guy took on coaching duties, serving as the Philippines’ head coach at the SEA Age Group Championships in 1994 and 2003, and the SEA Games in 2003.

He returned to competitive swimming at 43 through the 10-kilometer open water event of the 2012 FINA Marathon Swimming World Cup in Israel.

Liberal arts, professorial and coaching stint

It was during his college years that Guy, already a rising swimmer, had an interest in liberal arts. He went to the University of California Berkeley, earning a history degree in 1991.

In 2000, he finished his master of fine arts degree in film at Columbia University and, later on, joined De La Salle University (DLSU)’s faculty as a professor in its communications department and eventually its master of business arts program.

But his love of swimming didn’t waiver. He served as DLSU’s varsity swimming coach until 2012. Under his watch, the Green Archers won five UAAP titles and several MVP and Rookie of the Year awards. Among his notable mentees was actor Enchong Dee.

He was also organizing a lot of triathlon events in the country, including the Iron Man 70.3 in 2012, serving as race director.

From swimming to visual arts

Guy said he didn’t really intend to become a visual artist until he bonded with his sons Pablo and Rory over art.

He described Pablo as a “very talented illustrator” who would draw on their bathroom tiles as a toddler. This prompted him and his wife to get Pablo an art teacher. Guy sat next to Pablo during his classes, enjoying the father-and-son quality time while appreciating art anew. But it was Rory, who has Down syndrome, that made Guy embrace the arts further.

When Rory was a year and a half, they learned that he had leukemia. To get him the best treatment possible, the Concepcions moved to the US in 2015.

During Rory’s chemotherapy sessions, Guy said he would bring Pablo to the art store. “When we started to do painting together… I realized it's one of the best ways to cope with the situation,” he shared. “It has become a big part of me.”

To date, Rory is already cancer-free, and Guy is amused that he’s a “very, very naughty” kid.

He fondly remembered how Rory would “ruin” his paintings by swiping his fingers onto the oil or acrylic and then placing his hands on the carpet or sofa or walls.

This prompted Guy to switch to ink as a “cleaner and safer” medium. And on the occasion that Rory rips his paintings off, no harm is done at all.

“I'll just make a collage,” Guy said, adding Rory inspired him to specialize in the art form. “I incorporated much of our household stuff in my paintings, like [Pablo and Rory’s] homework, doodle, report card, and teacher's note.” 

Always existing creative spirit

Looking back on his swimming career, Guy said he always felt that there was a “creative spirit” in his body. He considers his swimming an art that’s meant to be performed in front of an audience.

“I always felt that I swam my best in my life as a swimmer whenever there's a nice crowd supporting me, as if I am dancing or singing,” he said.

As a matter of fact, Guy always wanted to pursue a career in arts upon retiring in swimming. His original goal was to become a filmmaker, that's why he took a postgraduate degree with a focus on it. “I actually wanted to pursue it right after my swimming career,” he said. “That creativity was always inside of me.”

Guy recalled being classmates with American filmmaker Anthony Russo, who with his brother Joe Russo—known as the Russo brothers— directed the critically and commercially successful Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“We spent time hanging out and drinking in my apartment,” he said.

But on a bittersweet note, Guy, unlike Russo whom he wished well, wasn’t able to become a filmmaker. “For some reason, it didn't work out,” he said. “I felt I was disappointed about it for a while, but the truth is, I kind of accepted that maybe that field is not for me.”

Still, Guy said his creative spirit has always been there, manifesting when he turned to visual arts years later when he started a family.

More importantly, he pointed out the “shelf life” of athletes, and that pursuing other things is important.

“All of us swimmers reach a high level. But eventually, that has to end. Even Lebron James had to stop playing basketball one day,” he said, adding that unlike sports, artistic pursuits don’t have a shelf life.

Being an Olympian artist

Guy said he got into the program thanks to his longtime friend Akiko Thomson-Guevara, a fellow swimmer and broadcast journalist who’s now the head of the Philippine Olympian Association. He said Akiko informed him about call for proposals, asking him to “go for it.”

Guy said he submitted his previous works for the International Olympic Committee to see his style and shared ideas on how he can incorporate Olympian values into his pieces if he gets accepted.

That’s precisely what happened. He’s part of the seven out of 90 individuals with successful proposals.

“I felt fantastic. I was downstairs, I checked my phone and the email came out. I immediately ran upstairs to tell my wife that we're going to Paris,” he said. “I can imagine what winning the lottery feels like.”

"Beyond the Box,” according to Guy, is his personal favorite because it was the very first piece he created. The title stemmed from the fact that he actually put a box in the middle of the canvas, surrounded by the elements.

He said his canvas remained blank for a while until he remembered the advice about tracing one’s hands in case of a creative block.

“Somehow, it worked. I knew what to do next. It's instinct. I kept going and going,” he said. The next thing he knew was that he completed the first entry of his series.

“I'm presenting how wild and crazy this world is, and you have to think outside of the box,” Guy said, adding that sports and arts are ever-dynamic because they pose a lot of struggles. “You have to see it in that sense.”

“Producer,” meanwhile, is Guy’s tribute to his recently deceased mother. “If it wasn't for her tremendous support, my brother and I would not have made it. She was really amazing and I admire her even more now.”

Though his mother, who had glaucoma, passed even before knowing he’d apply for the Olympian Artists Program, Guy believes she’s “up there seeing everything.” He’s also developing a certain artistic style in honor of her.

“She can hardly see. But now that she can see everything, I am creating a visual extravaganza for her just to give her eyes so much pleasure,” he said.

Guy noted how the IOC commended the personal nature of his artworks, which they love so much as they can “really see” Guy in them despite being abstract.

Olympic spirit

Guy is hoping for his artworks to bring out the “Olympic spirit” in everybody.

He recalled organizers asking him how he would interpret the essence of being an Olympian in his artwork and what do the Olympic values mean to him.

“In my point of view, it's always the result of hard work and determination. You must have the discipline. You must never, ever, ever give up,” he said, noting that one does not have to become an athlete for these things to apply to one's own life. “You have life challenges. There's a lot of ups and downs. But if you have an Olympic spirit, you can overcome them.”

“It's not easy to reach the level that we did,” Guy said on behalf of athletes participating in the Olympics. “There's a lot of failure and disappointment, which then turned to successes because we're determined, and we worked hard.”

“When you put that kind of attitude and mentality into creating art, you can keep going and going,” he said.

“It doesn't necessarily have to be in sports,” he also said of the Olympic spirit. “It can just be in parenting, friendship, or family.”