‘Basic Instinct’ actress Sharon Stone reveals abstract paintings in new exhibition

During the pandemic, a friend sent Sharon Stone a paint-by-numbers set to keep her busy, a gesture that has led to a new path of creative expression for the actor. 

Known best for acting roles in films like Casino and Basic Instinct, Stone has discovered a love of painting and launched a new exhibition of her giant canvases at the C. Parker Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut this week.

Stone got frustrated staying within the lines and colours in that first paint set and started creating her own abstract paintings using acrylic on canvas.

” I love painting in the big scale and it’s opened something in me… It’s moved something inside of me. And my first show was called ‘Shedding’ because I started realising I was shedding a lot of oppression,” says Stone. 

How Sharon Stone rediscovered herself through art

Over the past several years she has carved out studio space in her home where she works both indoors and outdoors. 

Her first showing of work was in California. The new show, her second, titled “Welcome to My Garden” features 19 brightly coloured paintings.

Stone says she is grateful for her new outlet because she has suffered many health problems for years that kept her from getting steady acting work.

“I mean, everyone thought I was going to die. So many, many, many bad things happened to me because people presumed that I was dead. So, like, my bank account somehow went to zero while I was in the hospital, my money disappeared. I lost custody of my child. My career ended,” Stone says.

Now she says she has taken control of her health and treatment and painting has helped her healing. 

“I’m a woman with a brain seizure condition. I have a disability, and painting has helped me not have the anxiety I had. I stopped cutting my hair because I was just so anxious all the time. I was just so anxious that I wasn’t going to be OK and I couldn’t be accepted and it wouldn’t be right,” Stone explains.

Stone, who is 65 and mother to three sons, says she paints almost every day.

“I love it so much and I love that it brings so much joy to people. It just does it brings such pleasure. And I love when people come to the studio and they’re like, ‘Wow, you know, we didn’t we didn’t know.” 

Stone’s show runs until 3 December at the C.Parker gallery.

Check out the video above for a look inside the exhibition.

Video editor • Theo Farrant