After more than three decades in Asia, the Irish-American artist came to Thailand last year to help restore Wat Suthat, one of Bangkok's four main royal temples. Monks say he is the first foreigner to take part in such a project.

The warmth and peace of the temple compound is a far cry from winter in South Korea, Barry's home for 33 years, and his former career in public relations at giant Daewoo Group.

He says it is a world away from the spiritual chill of his Catholic upbringing in Boston.

Barry, now 54 and a committed Buddhist, says he was inspired to travel to Asia by Jackie Kennedy's much publicized visit in 1967 and always wanted to get to Thailand.

So he applied to the Peace Corps established by her late husband president John F. Kennedy to send volunteers to work in developing countries. Thailand, though, was not on the cards.

"They said, ‘Right now we don't have a programme and if you want to go to Thailand, you have to wait a bit,"' Barry said. "So I waited - for 33 years!"

Barry took a Peace Corps post instead in South Korea, where he became fluent in the language and studied Buddhist art under one of its best-known religious painters, the Venerable Manbong.

Passing through Bangkok last year, he happened to visit Wat Suthat, where a chance conversation with a monk led to an invitation to repaint doors and windows of the Preaching Hall.

In Thailand, there's nothing remarkable about temple restoration - in Buddhist tradition, religious buildings undergo a constant process of refurbishment and beautification.

What is unusual is that a foreigner should be invited to help, and Barry's style of painting.

A different school

Thailand is known for its practice of the southern, or Theravada school of Buddhism, but Barry's colourful style of Buddhist art learned in Korea comes from the Mahayana school of that country, China and Japan.

At another temple, such a break with tradition might raise eyebrows, but Wat Suthat is known for a certain eccentricity.

Entering the compound, visitors are greeted by the temple guardians - rows of detailed life-sized stone carvings of Western seafarers in the uniforms of a century-and-a-half ago.

Shipped from China to Thailand as ballast in merchantmen, they are almost cartoon-like caricatures. They were placed around the Ordination Hall by 19th century Thai King Rama III, a progressive monarch who believed in internationalization and wanted foreigners to "feel at home" in the temple.

The Buddha in the Preaching Hall has another story to tell. It was cast in 1839 on Rama III's orders from tin and lead opium canisters seized from 19th century drug lords.

"He was a very wise king," says Barry. "He took something bad, that could conceivably have ruined the country, and turned it into a symbol of hope and inspiration for the people."

Barry says this is an example of the most important things he has learned in his years of Buddhist studies.

A ‘religious boatperson'

Barry says he became a "religious boat person" when he left Boston searching for spiritual meaning following an overly strict Irish-Catholic childhood.

"I took something bad - my repressed upbringing - and turned it into something good."

Abbot's secretary Phra Pipitdhamma Sunthorn, who invited Barry to Wat Suthat, is delighted with the progress.

"As far as I know, there are no other foreigners painting at temples in Thailand. There hasn't been in my lifetime, or the past 100 years. What Brian is doing comes from a beautiful heart, and from sacrifice - because we had no budget for him."

For what will be many months of work, Barry receives no pay, just simple monastic lodgings and "the tremendous honour and joy" he says he gains from the experience.

(Agencies via Xinhua)