May 4, 2023: Pierce Brosnan and his son Paris Brosnan attend the Robina Benson x Ally Hilfiger, Paris Brosnan, Nikki Haskell - "The Company We Keep" in West Hollywood, California. Getty Images
Irish actor Pierce Brosnan showcased his artistic talent and over 30 years of "deeply personal" paintings and drawings in his first solo art exhibition entitled "So Many Dreams."
"And that’s a wrap!" Brosnan said in a social media post on May 22, the day after the exhibition closed in Los Angeles.
"Thank you to all who helped me launch SO MANY DREAMS and to those who came out in support of the exhibition. It was a dream come true on so many levels. A wonderful way to celebrate my birthday!"
Brosnan's first solo art show "So Many Dreams" was hosted on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles and featured paintings and drawings that were created between the late 1980s and the present day.
The former James Bond revealed that he believes it is only through painting that he can fully express himself.
“(The artwork) is biographical," Brosnan told AP News.
"I’ve tried to write the memoirs, and it’s so boring. It’s just having to dig into the head and the heart and the memory of life. And so these paintings definitely have a history of who I was, where I was, when I was."
The veteran actor, who was born in 1953 in Drogheda, Co Louth and raised in Navan, Co Meath, has always had an interest in the visual arts. He began painting and drawing as a young boy living in Ireland, and one of his first jobs was as a commercial artist in London.
After he later moved to the US and landed the lead role on NBC's "Remington Steele," his career took off and he became too busy to paint.
“I found myself living here, and I was strongly influenced by the L.A. artists of the early 80s," he told AP News. "I had a certain desire and wish and a want to paint. I had the money to afford the art supplies, the canvas, the brushes.
“I bought all these wonderful, wonderful art supplies, and they just ended up in a cupboard.”
He didn't pick up a paintbrush until 1987 when his late wife Cassandra Harris was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. He said he would often paint while Harris, who died in 1991, recovered from chemotherapy treatments.
“One night, I got up, and I just started painting. I started painting with my fingers,” said Brosnan.
He kept that first work, titled “One Dark Night,” and it is one of the 50 paintings and 100 drawings that were featured in the exhibition.
Brosnan credits his wife Keely Shaye Brosnan, a documentary filmmaker and journalist, for the idea to exhibit his work.
“Pierce’s work is deeply personal so that’s why I thought we should show it,” she told Vanity Fair.
“Many of these paintings have been in storage…and it occurred to me that we should share them and host an exhibition where people could see a different facet of Pierce.
"I think for many of his fans, they will appreciate the opportunity to see this other creative side of him. Everywhere he goes and every movie set he’s on, he always sets up a studio and paints. What you see at the exhibition is the result.”
Brosnan, who turned 70 on May 16, said the show is a celebration of his life, work, and dreams.
“It’s my own birthday gift to myself to have the courage to say, come and see my artwork,” he said.
“I still have so many dreams. I have fulfilled coming to America. Creating a career for myself was a big dream and a gamble, and it paid off.
"‘So Many Dreams’ is a love story. It’s a love story of women who have influenced my life and my children and the art form that I make as an actor."
Brosnan told The Hollywood Reporter that the exhibition is "a biography in some respects of the people, places and times of my life and hopefully a new beginning as well.”
He added that the show was also "about letting go of the work" so that he can "move on" to a new stage in his life.
Brosnan, who said he hopes to turn his paintings into a book, revealed he'd also like to branch out into other art forms, such as ceramics, pottery, sculpture, and wood carvings.
“This is definitely a transitional moment in my life as an actor, as an artist ... and that fills me with an exhilaration of expectations and desires and wants. And we shall see where the wind takes us.”