Peter Sinclair: Stars of paintbrush

There's a sort of flame which burns within some individuals and continues to flicker throughout a life; for its light, though not always steady, is inextinguishable.

And it will shine from many different directions, as I was reminded last week when I read, on the BBC, that Paul McCartney's first exhibition of paintings — 500 canvasses — had opened in Bristol's Arnolfini Gallery.

After a life crowned with every success the guitar can bring, at 40 Sir Paul laid it aside and picked up brushes and palette after meeting abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) in front of one of the American's paintings.

"At the risk of appearing gauche,' said Sir Paul, 'what is it, Bill?"

"Dunno, looks like a couch, huh?" the artist said (it was in fact one of his later works, entitled Summer Couch).

"I thought [it] looked like a ... mountain," Sir Paul says now, "but the fact he said it didn't matter what it was freed me.

"I always liked painting as a kid, but I thought there was some kind of reason I shouldn't because I hadn't been to art college, because I was just a working-class person."

John Lennon came to art from the opposite direction, studying at Liverpool Art Institute (1957-60) before becoming a musician. Today, limited-edition prints of his drawings fetch hundreds.

Fellow sixties star David Bowie was first to the web with his work, and promotes it vigorously — make an offer at www.bowieart.com.

At its best, it achieves a cheerful neo-postcard effect; at its worst, a doomed attempt at Francis Bacon.

Joni Mitchell's paintings are as striking as her lyrics: "You wanna make Van Goghs/Raise 'em up like sheep/Make 'em nice and normal/Make 'em nice and neat ..."

And Tony Curtis produces works which explode with Fauvist vitality.

It's amazing how the flame dances in such unlikely stars as Sylvester Stallone. Belying his lumpen image, his neo-expressionist paintings go for about $40,000 and his own art collection has included works by Monet, Chagall, Dali and Warhol; or in self-destructive bad-boy Robert Downey Jr, whose troubled vision is captured in religious paintings.

For any light involves an equal quantity of shadow. You see it in the clown paintings of serial murderer John Wayne Gacy, truly chilling in their gaudy colour and deathly inexpressiveness.

It's even clearer in the work of Jack Kevorkian whose bitten features resemble a medieval woodcut of the Grim Reaper himself.

There were no gentle landscapes or peacefully setting suns in his exhibition last year in Detroit's Ariana Gallery. Instead, rotting heads and a barbed-wire frame stained with the artist's own blood testify to "Dr Death's' avocation — the work of Adolf Hitler is saccharine in comparison. Where evil is banal, so is the art arising from it.

According to the gallery owner, Ann Kuffler, Kevorkian "has no further artistic aspirations. He doesn't enjoy the process and does not consider himself an artist. In fact, he disclaims the paintings as art."

At least he's a good critic.

Links:

BBC news

Willem de Kooning

John Lennon

Bowieart

Joni Mitchell

Tony Curtis

Sylvester Stallone

Robert Downey Jr

Robert Downey Jr's art

John Wayne Gacy

Jack Kevorkian

Adolf Hilter


petersinclair@email.com