Adrien Brody: Bad Painter for the Ages
Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love a Hobby Artist
I’ve been reading a lot about Adrien Brody recently. On the heels of his Oscar win, he’s been all over my newsfeed, and I’ve learned such fascinating facts as:
1. He performed magic shows as a kid under the stage name The Amazing Adrien.
2. He once boasted to an interviewer that he’s something of a chef, saying, “I can whip up an amazing meal with very little. Cheese and crackers and a microwave, and you can get something really interesting.”
3. He posts photos of inspirational tea-bag messages on Instagram without a hint of irony.
But, by far, I’ve been most intrigued to learn that when Brody isn’t acting, he’s making art. Lots of it. Whether he’s at his rented loft in Lower Manhattan, the home studio in his upstate New York castle, or that other studio he has in Puerto Rico, painting plays an enormous role in Brody’s life. He speaks about his art the way a husband might his lust for the younger woman he’s having an affair with. “Painting affords me more freedom than acting,” Brody says. “It’s not something I have to focus on like a job — it’s my release.”
Despite painting and drawing since childhood, it wasn’t until 2015 that Brody decided to make his art public. His first series, titled Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, and Handguns, debuted at Lulu Laboratorium during Art Basel Miami 2015. Brady described his exhibit as a reflection on instant gratification, especially as it relates to violence. It was also deeply informed by his upbringing in New York City and the loss of innocence he observed across modern urban environments.
Discussing his pieces with interviewers at the time, Brody seemed high on his own inspiration, ablaze with new social themes and observations he could tackle next. He spoke of bringing “a little lightness into the work” in future series and using art to build on ideas he’d mulled over for years. Art, not acting, was the ultimate expression of who he was, how he felt about the state of the world and what he envisioned for it.
However, his art was not—and is still not—very good.
I’m no art critic, but I’m also not blind. Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, and Handguns was no feat of the visual medium, no matter how much Brody used the word “zeitgeist” to speak about it. The best way to describe the series would be “Warholian,” but only because it falls into the realm of pop art and has some half-baked commentary on commercialism. The pieces aren’t bad, per se, but they’re not something I would run off and tell people about. (“Mom, you’ll never believe it! Adrien Brody glued a smartphone screen to a male mannequin’s forehead and changed my whole perception of media consumption!”)
Brody’s art is colorful and eye-catching but not especially memorable. It wants to say so many things yet, in the end, it doesn't say much of anything. The more I read about Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, and Handguns (and Brody’s 2016 follow-up series, Hooked), the more baffled I was that no loved one had staged an intervention or, at the very least, urged him to take a break and read some scripts.
Like HDH&H, Hooked tackled themes of consumerism and moral unravelling, this time playing upon icons like Starbucks’s mermaid logo (which was rebranded as “Brodybucks” and reworked so that the mermaid held two shotguns). He noted one of his most dominating themes as being “supermarket pastoral,” and described one painting of tinned salmon as an “environmental approach” to the consumerist criticism that Warhol popularized.
Hooked was the culmination of many “fish ideas” Brody claimed he’d been cooking up for some time. “If we look closely, we are the fish,” he said in one interview with DuJour. “We are the ones ‘hooked’ as we consume with abandon…the fragility and beauty and uniqueness of fish is much like our own spirit and spiritual state.”
Sure. Why not?
Here’s the thing: as much as I do believe that Adrien Brody’s time would be better spent playing more damaged men on the silver screen, I simply can’t dislike the guy. He’s one of the most pretentious modern celebrities I can think of, yet every time I read more about his hobbies—especially his painting—I feel more inspired than anything else.
Every inroad Brody’s made into the visual art world would be cringey and off putting if it weren't so extremely sincere. In the 2010s, he took a year and a half off from acting to focus solely on painting, and as for his self-financed studios across the world…well, you simply don’t do that if your heart’s not truly in it.
Brody speaks about how art has, in many ways, fulfilled him more than acting, becoming the most cathartic and gratifying part of his life. He loved painting as a kid and dreamt of coming back to it in adulthood. It’s the same way anyone thinks back fondly on the simple passions of their early years: guitar lessons, sketchbooks, school plays, choir practice. We so rarely return to those passions, and even more rarely attack them with the dedication that Brody has shown for over a decade now.
“Whether someone appreciates it or not, it’s fine, it’s subjective,” he told Artsy soon after Hooked premiered. “But it’s coming from me. And it’s wonderful. The process in and of itself is so exciting and fun.” Painting is not a side hustle; Brody’s not trying to supplement his movie money with auction sales of his grand fish paintings or monetize his multimedia collages so he can buy another castle. He’s doing it to do it.
It’s hard to make time for hobbies as an adult and to not feel embarrassed by them. (I, for one, still cringe when I tell people I do improv comedy.) Yet, here Adrien Brody is: painting, building, putting guns in a mermaid’s hands and loving every minute of it. And though I hate to give him even more props than I already have, it feels important to mention that Brody’s used his work to raise money for nonprofits, exceeding a combined million dollars in donations to organizations that sponsor AIDS research, environmental protection, and international education.
If his celebrity does, indeed, make his art a cash cow (and I simply must assume that’s the situation) he’s using that cash cow ethically. Some millionaire just bought a large splatter-painted fish because he liked The Pianist, and now that money’s going to a cause. Who am I to roll my eyes?
In fact, I only rolled my eyes at first because Brody’s sincerity made me uncomfortable. I will forever stand by his being pretentious (I mean, just look at this outfit), but I like what Adrien Brody, the painter, stands for: a celebrity who’s in pursuit of something outside of the craft that makes him money, who continues to pour his soul into hobby projects that mean something to him. I may not understand the philosophical depth of “fish ideas,” but Brody does, and that’s what matters.
The art is not good, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s a challenge for someone who wants to keep challenging himself even after immense career success; who wants to keep learning and trying new things. “There was more to explore in a creative sense,” Brody said of his foray into painting. “For most people, creation and the time spent creating – that evolution and that awakening of your soul is the beauty of doing it.”
It’s so cliche, but I just can’t be mad at him for it.