Film star Adrien Brody puts his heart into his art—but it’s not enough to keep criticism at bay

We’re always keen to scope out celebrity painters, and so the buzz around movie star Adrien Brody’s latest attempts at art certainly twitched our antennae. The Oscar-winning star of The Brutalist is currently showing his newest works at Eden Gallery in New York (until 28 June). The series of mixed-media pieces are dotted with popular culture stalwarts such as Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Marilyn Monroe—even Jean-Michel Basquiat makes an appearance.

Intriguingly, rodents are a staple in Brody’s canon (Field Mouse, 2024). Why exactly? “I grew up in New York, where rats and mice were everywhere, and it’s symbolic to me for many reasons. I always felt for the rats and the mice that I would see in the subways on the way to school—how everybody would be disgusted,” he tells Cultured magazine.

Brody’s art is receiving a mixed reception (to put it mildly). “Jesus, that’s bad….,” said a particularly harsh contributor on social media. “With its faux naïve aesthetic and its mediocre production value, Brody’s works beg the question: Why are we still talking about them?” asked ARTnews. The New York Times, meanwhile, features a rather readable profile and highly watchable video mash-up of the artist. The story sets the scene nicely with this epithet: “Adrien Brody, the Oscar-winning actor, is also Adrien Brody, the impassioned painter, is also Adrien Brody, the beats-mixing sound artist.”