Sharon Stone on Getting Back Into Painting and Her Passion for Art: 'I Re-Found My Heart'

"I bought real brushes and I started to regain my control, my brush movements," Stone recalled of getting back into painting during the pandemic

Photo: filmdigital//MEGA

Sharon Stone is sharing her love for painting.

The Basic Instinct actress, 65, discussed rediscovering her passion for the art with The Art Newspaper ahead of the opening of her first solo gallery exhibition called "Shedding."

She told the outlet that art had been a part of her life since she was a child, as she had received painting lessons from her Aunt Vonne, who had studied it in college. Stone followed in her footsteps, taking up painting while at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, which enabled her to visit "museums all over the world when they're closed."

She recalled it had been "an extraordinary experience" at the time, but ultimately had to put painting to the side as her acting career took off. Painting was something that she wouldn't return to for decades until the COVID pandemic happened.

Stone told Art Newspaper that a friend got her a paint-by-the-numbers kit after she mentioned she wanted to pick up the activity again while she was stuck at home. From there, she began painting more and even set up a studio at her property specifically for it.

"I bought real brushes and I started to regain my control, my brush movements," Stone said. "I painted and painted and painted, and I re-found myself. I re-found my heart. I re-found my center."

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She said she would often be told to "stay in her lane" throughout her life, but this time to any naysayers, she would tell them, "How do you know this isn't my lane? How do you know that painting isn't my real lane?"

She said she decided on the name "Shedding" for her gallery, which opens April 7, to symbolize shedding different kinds of things like her Hollywood persona or even loss.

​​"I lost my family — my film family — I lost my personal family, many members of my family died," she said. "My brother had a heart attack and his 11-month-old son died of crib death; my godmother died, and my grandmother died."

She channeled those feelings into art, creating one painting called The River, which depicts a white foggy river going through weeds and leading up to a night sky with a full moon and several other red moons floating nearby. She told the publication that she made the painting to depict her nephew's "journey."

Earlier this month, while being honored at the An Unforgettable Evening benefit gala for the Women's Cancer Research Fund, she revealed that she was dealing with several challenges in her life.

"I just lost half my money to this banking thing, and that doesn't mean that I'm not here. My brother just died, and that doesn't mean that I'm not here. This is not an easy time for any of us," she said while encouraging people to donate.

"This is a hard time in the world, but I'm telling you what, I'm not having some politician tell me what I can and cannot do, tell me I can and cannot live and what the value of my life is and is not," Stone added, referring to women's rights. "So stand up. Stand up and say what you're worth, I dare you. That's what courage is."