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PAUL STANLEY, Letting His Paintbrush Do The Rockin'From: Washington Post Posted: October 2, 2008 Perhaps it was inevitable. PAUL STANLEY -- known for wearing red lipstick, white foundation and a black star over his right eye -- has transferred his makeup skills to canvas. The KISS frontman has a booming art career, to the tune of $2 million in sales last year, and will visit the D.C. area next week when his paintings go on display at Wentworth Gallery in Tysons Galleria. "Art has been a means to connect with myself emotionally and to kind of mirror, I guess, whatever's been going on inside of me or outside of me," Stanley, 56, said in a phone interview from his Beverly Hills home. Stanley's art and music careers have been intertwined since he was a student at New York's High School of Music and Art, the school that inspired the 1980 film "Fame." He went there for visual art, not music, until he "accomplished the impossible": He failed art class. ("I've never been terribly fond of authority figures.") The experience turned him off art, and he channeled his creative energy into music. The rest is star-spangled, spandexed, rock-and-roll history. About eight years ago, Stanley picked up his paintbrush again as a way to deal with his divorce. He says he never intended anyone to see (let alone buy) his art, but when he hung an abstract acrylic painting called "Green Planet" on his wall, visitors kept asking him about it, and he realized that his work might have an audience. Stanley paints big and bold -- his originals are as large as five feet on a side -- and covered with strokes of intense, saturated colors. His figurative art depicts peace signs, hearts and stars. Much of his abstract work includes a central orb, such as "Green Planet" and a painting called "Tokyo Rain," which was inspired by seeing the neon lights of the Japanese city from the inside of a car during a storm. He also dabbles in portraiture and has painted himself and his fellow KISS band members. Kiss bassist and vocalist GENE SIMMONS owns a Stanley painting of the Statue of Liberty, rendered in vibrant splotches of aqua, maroon and yellow. "I think certainly he was blown away by the creativity," Stanley says of Simmons's reaction to his art. "The monetary aspect validates it that much more for him." An original PAUL STANLEY can sell for about $70,000; a small print goes for $1,000, though Stanley insists on calling it a " 'limited-edition giclée,' because 'print' sounds like something you tore out of a magazine." His customers range from KISS diehards who don't go to art galleries often (or ever) to collectors who wouldn't dream of attending a metal concert. He has had about 18 gallery shows over the past 18 months. "Most might see [my success] as a monetary figure, but I'm lucky I don't have to," he says. "I see it as an amount of people who are connecting with my art. Whether I sold one piece or 10,000 pieces, I was never going to be a starving artist, given my background. It's humbling to have that kind of success." PAUL STANLEY will be at Wentworth Gallery in Tysons Galleria from noon to 3 p.m. Oct. 11. 2001 International Dr., McLean. Free. 703-883-0111. |
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