By IANS,
London : Czech tennis legend Martina Navratilova will contribute funds to Laureus Sport for Good Foundation from the sales of her Art Grand Slam paintings.
Martina produced these pieces of art along with Slovak artist Juraj Kralik, which have been on exhibition during the Wimbledon Championships.
Martina, who is a member of Laureus Sports Academy, will give 15 per cent of the proceeds of sales to the Laureus charity.
“I think we athletes always try to give something back to those less fortunate than ourselves because our sport has given us such a great life. It is tremendous that we can help kids to learn to be healthier, to have fun and to develop skills that will work for them for the rest of their lives,” Martina said Sunday.
“I hooked up with Juraj eight years ago. He had this idea of painting with tennis balls, so we do sculpting pieces and paintings on clay as well as hard canvas. For the most part, we dip the tennis balls in paint and hit them onto a canvas, either as you would on court, so the imprint is long, or bounce them, or hit them against the wall to create different splatters,” Martina said.
“And we’ve been using the bigger, autograph balls to create a bigger splatter with different colour paints, and we do different designs like a tennis net and you hit balls over the net. We’re getting more and more abstract now with the creations and it’s a lot of fun. I don’t claim to be an artist, but the pieces have got a good artistic acclaim,” added Martina.
Navratilova has won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 Grand Slam women’s doubles titles (an all-time record), and 10 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. She reached the Wimbledon singles final 12 times, including for 9 consecutive years from 1982 through 1990, and won the women’s singles title at Wimbledon a record nine times.