To this day, people think of Sharon Stone as the femme fatale in Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct, but she is so much more than that: award-winning actor, mother and—this may be news to some—artist. After the actress suffered a stroke in 2001, she began painting full-time in her Los Angeles home studio.
Nineteen examples of her artistic output are on view in her soon-to-close solo show, “Sharon Stone: Welcome To My Garden,” on view at C. Parker Gallery in Greenwich, CT. What exactly is in Stone’s garden? A lot of weeds, some flowers and a forest of insight.
Unbeknownst to many, Stone has been painting since a child. Her aunt Vonne created murals in her childhood home, and Stone studied painting in college. When Stone had the stroke, she was given a 5 percent chance of survival. It took her seven years to recover, and art offered a path to healing that acting didn’t.
“I tried to hide [the resultant brain seizure disorder] for many years because I wanted to make my way back in the business,” she told AP in October. “And if you have a disability, that doesn’t really work in my industry. And so, I hid my condition for many, many, many years. And that’s who I........