After becoming a household name in Hollywood with Titanic, what drew you to painting?
I watched Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat and saw how Jean-Michel used house paint and rollers and a large canvas on the floor to great improvisational effect. I was hooked. It simply spoke to my sensibilities, and I realized I could find them on most film sets and any city or village in any country in the world.
What was the first thing you painted?
Years before I jumped headlong into abstract expressionism, I painted a night scene landscape of the Capitol Records Building in Hollywood [California] as seen from my terrace atop the Hollywood Tower apartments. It was pop figurative impressionism.
What do you want people to know about your art?
Fundamentally, I paint from love. I paint from joy and controlled chaos and happy accidents. The work is not filled with angst. I’m not a tortured artist. I’m a well-traveled one, and I back my brushstroke with gratitude. You can live with my work knowing it’s like a meal cooked with love.
What would you consider your artistic influences?
In design, I’m a big fan of biomimicry, whereby one borrows from the natural world for efficiency and aesthetic. My paint applications often resemble elements seen within macro and micro cosmos, sperm and egg, deep sea creatures, or comets. I discovered this purely by chance as I paired my color sense with inertia. The velocity and force behind most of my applications invites the natural laws of physics to inform them.
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Who are your heroes?
The great production designer Cedric Gibbons and costume designer Edith Head. Though they have no obvious correlation to my work as I can tell, I feel their synergy, color, and temperature, as well as how they interacted dimensionally on their respective foreground and background planes.
Have any of your roles inspired your work?
I got started in abstract expressionism during the seven months filming Titanic in Mexico. You could say that the time/place had inspired me. However, I cannot attribute a role to a painting as much as a place.
How does your process differ from being on set?
Singular expression versus art by committee. I prefer both together. Painting on set provides the imminent pressure, stimuli, access to materials, and it’s a good way for actors to bond with the crew.
How would you describe your style?
My style is un-precious, yet even in the brutish technique or use of materials I employ, some find it delicate. I’ve heard it described as authentic, which I suppose is all one can ask for.
