Pierce Brosnan Details His 'Long Journey' to Debuting His First Solo Art Exhibition (Exclusive)
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Pierce Brosnan's So Many Dreams exhibition is on display in Los Angeles through May 21
Pierce Brosnan may have spent many successful decades as an actor playing suave, sophisticated characters, but there's one role he's kept largely to himself, until now: fine artist. The Goldeneye star says the inspiration and support of his tight-knit family has helped him on his less well-known creative path.
A few days in advance of his 70th birthday on May 16, the Irish actor unveiled a very different creative side at the debut solo exhibition of his artwork, "So Many Dreams," a curated collection of paintings, sketches, silkscreens and other creations in the works over a 36-year period.
The actor tells PEOPLE that exploring artistic expression on canvas has been a longtime aspiration, and just as satisfying as any of his work in front of a camera.
"It's a retrospective," Brosnan says of the exhibition, which is being displayed at a pop-up art gallery on Los Angeles' trendy La Brea Boulevard through May 21. "It started in '87, so it's quite a long journey of painting and putting them in storage and giving them away. And the evolution has become more mature and more necessary in my life as I get older — and my birthday of 70 years on the planet is just in spitting distance, as it were, so we decided to have the show to put it all together."
Related:Pierce Brosnan and Wife Keely Celebrate Son Paris' College Graduation: 'Heartfelt Congratulations'
At the opening night of the exhibit, which spotlighted Brosnan's distinctively bright and bold color palettes in everything from representational works — including portraits of Bob Dylan, Pablo Picasso and Brosnan himself — to imaginative abstract expressions, the actor's wife of 22 years, Keely Shaye Brosnan, and their eldest son, Dylan Brosnan, were on hand to support his gallery debut. Keely even delighted in pointing out some of her favorite works, including one that was a Valentine's Day gift from her husband.
Brosnan admits he's learned to trust Keely's design sense when he's facing artistic roadblock while working in his studio in their garage. "Oh, my wife is quite strong with her input, and she has spoken many times — and she's right though, which is really annoying!" he laughs. "It's annoying when she says it, and then it's annoying that I have to walk away and go, 'She's right. Yes, that needs to be more blue,' or 'That just doesn't make sense.'"
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"I have learned to embrace and enjoy our kinship of life and friendship of life, and watching each other just get older," he adds of their long and abiding romance. Even the velvet jacket he wore to the reception was at Keely's suggestion, he confesses. "My wife said 'Wear it.' "
His sons share his creative spark as well. "Our [youngest] son Paris is a very bold,strong, powerful painter in the making," he says. "We paint together and he's very strong. We'll have a show at some point, that's the plan."
Meanwhile, Dylan worked on a short film documenting his father at work as an artist, which can be viewed at the exhibit. "My tall handsome boy over there, he's a documentary filmmaker and so he made it with Thom Zimny," Brosnan reveals. "You'll see the garage if you wish to see the garage!"
Art has always been crucial in Brosnan's life, even dropping out of high school to pursue his dreams as a commercial illustrator. "I left school at 16 in South London with nothing more than a cardboard folder of drawings and paintings, hoping to be an artist," he recalls. "I found a job as a trainee commercial artist in Putney, South London. Basically, it was an ad agency…They gave me a pen. I had no qualifications. I drew straight lines every day, watered the spider plants and made cups of tea. And within that life, within that world of creating what I was creating, I discovered acting."
As his career as an actor caught fire, ultimately leading him to Hollywood, his artistic ambitions were largely sidelined until 1987, when he returned to painting as a means to help him process and cope with his first wife Cassandra Harris' illness. She died of ovarian cancer in 1991. "The earlier pieces come out of a pain of life and an aloneness of life," he reflects. Over time, however, his artwork became an expression of a variety of thoughts and feelings, and a great source of joy for Brosnan as he became ever more skilled.
"I have a style," he says, noting that he envisions his colorful work not only selling to private collectors (one of his portraits of Bob Dylan sold for $1.4 million at the 25th AmfAR Gala Cannes, Cinema Against AIDS in 2018) but also adorning mass market products. "I have a confidence in a certain style of repetition of line that I think you could put on crockery or wallpaper or linens."
Brosnan's efforts as an artist offer a similar gratification as his acting. "They're all about performance of expressing the inner life of a character," he explains. "Within the endeavor of a painter, for me, does it have some emotion for me doing of it, in the making of painting a chair or to try and to try and capture Bob Dylan, to do something attractive?"
"This is expressing the inner life of a man wanting to be a painter, endeavoring to be an artist, to be a painter — someone who has the desire and the want and the need to paint," he adds, noting that he hopes that his artistic side will become increasingly defining for him. "This is a transitional moment in the work. As I've stored so much of it, I have to now let it go if I'm going to move on, if I'm going to pursue the practice of being a painter, an artist."
But he won't be wandering away from Hollywood anytime soon, he assures. Indeed, his ties to his industry were apparent in the notable attendees who packed gallery included Kelly Clarkson (who Brosnan invited earlier in the week, while appearing as a guest on her syndicated chat show), Adam Devine and wife Chloe Bridges (DeVine co-stars opposite Brosnan in the upcoming Netflix film The Out-Laws), Jane Seymour, socialite Linda Thompson, film producer Lawrence Bender and saxophonist Kenny G.
"Does acting still loom larger in [my] life? I hope so. I think there's employment for 70-year-old Irishman or Irish American. Who knows?" he says, pointing to his recent appearance as Doctor Fate in the superhero film Black Adam and a forthcoming slate of film projects. "I've got a lot of work. I've got things to do here, God willing."
Today, Brosnan says he's thrilled to have made the once seemingly distant dream of artistic success come true for his youthful self, and even inspires some welcome nerves in the accomplished performer he's become.
"It's deeply meaningful to me, to Pierce the 17-year-old, to the young man that I was who was searching for creative life, artistic life, always wished it, wanted it, and I've go tit and I've enjoyed it as an artist, as an actor, as a performer, as someone who entertains," he says. "And now to show the work of a painter, a man who I think has some sense of what he's doing and joy of what he's doing, and has the courage to put it up on the walls and come and see the work, to show oneself – [It's] very vulnerable. Very, very raw."
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