Pierce Brosnan has tried to write about himself many times, but it is through painting that the artist feels that he can fully express himself. “(The artwork) is autobiographical. I’ve tried to write memoirs, and it’s so boring. It’s just digging into the head and the heart and the memories of life. And so these pictures definitely have a history of who I was, where I was, when I was. “Yes,” said the actor.
Brosnan is unveiling his most vulnerable role publicly, hosting his first solo art exhibition – which runs until May 21 in Los Angeles. Titled “So Many Dreams”, it is a collection of paintings and drawings created by the actor between the 1980s and the present day.
Painting is not a new epidemic hobby or venture that the actor is just tackling head-on. Although best known for playing James Bond and starring in other classics, Brosnan began pursuing the visual arts as a young boy living in Ireland.
He later moved to the United States, where he would play the lead role in NBC’s “Remington Steele,” making Brosnan a worldwide household name and one of the most coveted actors in Hollywood.
“I found myself living here, and I was very influenced by the LA artists of the early ’80s. I had a certain will and desire and desire to paint. I had money to buy art supplies, canvas, brushes,” Brosnan said. “I bought all these wonderful, wonderful art supplies, and they just ended up in the closet.”
It wasn’t until 1987, when Brosnan’s late wife, Australian actor Cassandra Harris, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer that Brosnan would dust off his painting supplies and begin using the art form as an emotional release and solace for him and Harris.
“One night, I woke up, and I just started drawing. I started drawing with my fingers,” Brosnan said, recalling how Harris would draw while recovering from chemotherapy treatment. He died in 1991, but the actor has kept that first work, The title is “One Dark Knight” and is attached to this exhibit.
The primary colors are spread across the black painted canvas and one can almost see the frustration and release that Brosnan feels. “I went to the canvas to explore that dark anger, that kind of broken pain. But the color came out. And so whatever that inner life is, the color balance,” he said.
Although pops of bright color are prominent in Brosnan’s art, he doesn’t like to categorize his collection.
“Someone else can categorize it. It’s not up to me to define it. It’s the audience. Those who want to criticize or celebrate the work,” he said.
Brosnan credits his wife, journalist and documentarian Kelly Shay Brosnan, with giving him the courage and push to display his art publicly.
Many of Brosnan’s paintings are the result of drawings he made while chatting on the phone.
“My wife, Kelly, bought these pads that sit on the phone with her initials, my initials. And soon I’m on a phone call, or I’m doing business, and I have a morning of calls. The pad is there, and the pictures just happen. They just show themselves, So they have a secret.”
The exhibition walls are lined with paintings, many of which are faces that pop into his mind or photographs he has seen. “I look at that, and I think, who is this person. ‘Who is this person? What do these pictures mean,'” the actor said.
Brosnan’s first solo exhibition, thanks to a push from Keely and perfectly timed around the actor’s 70th birthday on Tuesday, is a celebration of his work and the dreams he accomplished during his time.
“Having the courage to come and see my artwork is my birthday present to me,” he said. “I still have many dreams. I have fulfilled them by coming to America. Creating a career for me was a big dream and a gamble, and it paid off. ‘Many Dreams’ is a love story. It is a love story of women who have influenced my life and my children. And that is the art form that I become as an artist,” he added.
The exhibition has helped Brosnan see the totality of his work and he says that now he can “get out of the weeds and try to define it and try to grow as an artist, as a painter.”
Brosnan also wants to branch out into other art forms, ceramics, pottery, sculpture and wood carving.
“It’s definitely a transitional moment in my life as an actor, as an artist … and it fills me with joy of hope and desire and desire. And we’ll see where the wind takes us.”
But Brosnan has a solution to his failed attempt at writing a memoir.
“I think a book of pictures would be great. It would be a coffee table book with a painting and then 500 words or more about that person at that time. That kind of appeals to me.”
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