Artist who made £13.4m last year after previously being homeless

In our How I Manage My Money series we aim to find out how people in the UK are spending, saving and investing money to meet their costs and achieve their goals.

This week we speak to Kevin Sharkey, known as Sharkey, 62, an Irish artist based in Dublin. With homes in Ireland and New York, Sharkey lives with his two dogs, Biddy and Spookie, and a rescued magpie called Linda. Adopted as a child and later placed into care, Sharkey worked in a host of jobs before he took his passion for art professional at the age of 38. He made millions before spending the lot and briefly ending up homeless living in a tent. He’s now firmly back on his feet and made over £13.4m last year.

Monthly budget

Income: My annual income varies, but I’m currently making around £86,000 to £108,000 from my art and sculptures a month. I also make nearly £50,000 per month from royalties for various songs I wrote. I receive royalties from music I have written for Boney M. and The Boomtown Rats as well as the Jilly Cooper film, The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, which I wrote the main song for. I was signed to Warner Chappell Music as a songwriter. I make £47,000 per talk for a series I do about my method, called How to Make Millions Selling Your Art. Last year, my total income came in at £13.4m.

My monthly outgoings: I do not have any mortgages and own all my properties outright. I spend £4,300 a month on travel and stay at five-star dog-friendly hotels. I drink the best quality Spanish red wine, which costs me £3,000 per month. My household staff costs, including gardeners and cleaners at my properties, and expenditure for professionals like accountants and lawyers, comes in at around £17,000 per month. I spend about £1,000 per month on my dogs. I also put £51,000 into savings each month.

I was born to an Irish mother, while my father was Nigerian and studying at the Royal College of Surgeons. My mother was a single mother at a time when having and keeping a black baby in Ireland was out of the question. I was adopted in 1961, the year I was born, by the Sharkey family and grew up in Killybegs, County Donegal, in a family of seven. I was the only black child in the county and did not see another black person until after I turned 12.

I lived with my adopted family until I was 12, when they changed their mind and put me back into the care system until I was 16. It was awful. That’s when I started painting to help me deal with the trauma of being rejected again. I found a way to escape the pain and loneliness. Creativity healed me, and still does.

When I was younger, I worked in a whole host of different jobs. I worked as a cook on a fishing boat, earning about £50 a week. It was dangerous, unpleasant and I couldn’t swim. I get terrible sea sickness too. Every day I went out to sea I thought it would probably be my last. I eventually became the head chef at the Hard Rock Café in Hyde Park Corner, London. It was a great place to be. I also did some work as a nude model, where I’d be paid about £300 an hour. David Bailey once photographed my penis for an exhibition he was doing. I was paid about £200 for that and didn’t end up going to the exhibition where I was on display!

I became the first black presenter on Irish television, hosting RTE’s Megamix show in the 1980s. I was paid £2,150 per show and there were 18 shows in each series. I was also a TV presenter on The Roxy.

I wrote songs and was signed to Warner Chappell Music. Now, I receive royalties totalling about £49,000 a month from music I wrote for Boney M. and Bob Geldof’s band, The Boomtown Rats, and for a Jilly Cooper film called The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, which I wrote the main song for.

I only started painting professionally when I was 38 and always knew my favourite artists were the rich ones. I have always been creative and recognised the value of it. Over time, I became successful and made over £4m in art sales. The problem was I spent £4.5m. I had a hell of a great time spending all that money and travelled the world staying in the best hotels. I helped out family and friends financially and bought them lots of expensive gifts. I was also investing heavily in my business at the time, spending large sums on galleries and advertising. Needless to say, I ended up in debt, homeless and broke in 2016.

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I briefly ended up living in a tent with my dogs until I got myself back on my feet. I remember later moving into a homeless hostel, and instead of thinking “how did I end up here?”, I was thinking “how the f**k do I get out of here and never come back?”.

I built myself back up financially and have now sold over 10,000 of my paintings. My paintings have been sold to the likes of Bob Geldof, Kate Moss and Courtney Love. Last year, I made £13.4m, mostly from my paintings and sculptures. I’m opening my new gallery on Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill, London on 1 November. Prices for my artwork at the London gallery will start at £22,000 and go up to £215,000 for large paintings.

I have four paintings that are priced at £215,000 each. These will be sold as a set to one buyer and called Jesus Loves The 1 Percent. They will go on show in Manhattan, New York in March 2024.

Money, for me, is for spending, especially when you can afford it. Money means having choices and options, and when I was broke and homeless, I had neither.

I have a beautiful penthouse apartment in downtown Manhattan which is worth around £7.75m, about £1.7m more than I paid for it. I also have a farm in Donegal worth £1m. Apart from that, I just have my home in Dublin, which has been valued at around £1m recently. I’m considering buying a home in Earls Court or High Street Kensington in London as I will need a place that is close to my new gallery.

I have no mortgage costs and think people should only buy property if they can pay for it outright, otherwise it’s never really their home.

I generally put £51,000 into a savings account each month. I have finally learnt how important it is to have a safety net of funds to fall back on.

I love good food and wine and spend £3,000 a month on excellent Spanish wine. I travel a lot and spend £4,300 each month on five-star dog-friendly hotels. I like the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris, which costs €1,200 a night. I am also a fan of the Plaza hotel in New York and K Club in Ireland. The latter costs around £1,030 per night, with everything included. I spend around £17,000 per month on household staff and other professionals like lawyers. I have three accountants who are more like friends now. My dogs are hugely important to me, and I spend about £1,000 per month making sure they have everything they need.

I don’t have any pensions and love what I do so much I will never retire. I don’t buy shares as my father was a gambler and they seem very similar to me. I would rather go to a casino and blow loads, that’s more exciting! In any event, I’m fortunate in knowing that I will not be short of a bob or two when I get older.

Being an artist means life is fraught with good times and bad times, mistakes, lessons and successes. When I see my paintings now going into beautiful homes, it’s so far away from the lowest point of my journey.

I remain ambitious and want to become one of the most important and successful contemporary artists in the world within the next few years. I plan on being the next Jean-Michel Basquiat and selling my art for millions.

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