| Actors
as Artists:
Pierce Brosnan
By:
Jim McMullan
and Dick Gautier (1992)
 |
I
never went to art school. I was self taught. I did line and wash
drawings
for Harrod's department store. I thought art was my destiny until a
fellow
office mate suggested that I come with him to a theater club. It was
1968,
at the height of experimental theater in London—La Mama, the Black
Panther
movement, musicians, artists. It was an arts lab. That's where I
began to blossom, where I began to develop my |
sensitivity
towards
imagery, composition, acting, and music. That's when I decided to
become
an actor.
| I
really started getting into painting several years ago because of my
wife
Cassie's illness. One night I was pretty low in spirit and I just got
the
canvas out and started painting with my fingers. I tried to put down on
the canvas the anger and frustration I felt. I just let it rip and put
everything into it. I still have that first painting. It's called First
Visit. I used that painting as a prop in a film I just
completed
called The Lawnmower Man. |
 |
After
that first
catharsis on canvas, I started to get more control by painting shapes.
I have always loved the work of Matisse. I just went with the colors
that
excited me. I started to educate myself about painting and painters
like
Matisse and Picasso. I devoured everything I could find on them. My art
is in its infancy now and I feel that it's with me for life. Wherever I
go I'll always have an easel or a room set aside for painting. I'm
educating
myself as I go. Do I have a philosophy? No, not yet.
 |
In
relation to acting, art has given me more patience. It has balanced out
the acting and taken the onus off it. Before, everything was for the
acting.
That was the only talent I had, I felt. Now I realize that I have a
talent
to make pictures and to create another world. It's so liberating. I'll
always have my painting.
I want to see
what it feels like to see my work in a book. I don't care whether
someone
likes my painting or not. But acting, that's something else. You want
to
be liked, you want to be good. With painting, if you like it, great; if
you don't, that's fine. The privacy of painting, the worlds that
you escape to, the things you resolve within yourself—it's so special,
so liberating.
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