Paris Hilton is many things, but nobody really thought she would ever become an art star. The iconic reality TV personality, who is the original influencer, not to mention DJ, beauty mogul and perfume-preneur, has been painting her way through quarantine.
Her artwork, I Dream Of Paris, is on view at the Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles until Friday, which is part of the Onch-curated group show entitled Sweet Sixteen. Her painting is going to be auctioned off to benefit the Starlight Children’s Foundation and Hilton will invite the winner to have dinner at her home (the bidding ends tomorrow and current bids are at $52,000).
“I’m so proud to make a beautiful piece of art to raise funds for the Starlight Foundation, a charity that helps children and is so close to my heart,” Hilton tells Forbes.
“The importance of being a philanthropist is something that has been instilled in me since I was a little,” she says. “I feel so blessed in life and it’s so important to give back.”
Hilton, as always, has a lot going on. Her forthcoming YouTube Originals documentary “This is Paris,” premieres September 14 on her YouTube channel. She recently announced, too, that she’s also working on her second book, which will dish on how to be a #BossBabe, a guide for women entrepreneurs.
But an artist? Nobody would have thought. It all started this past April when Hilton showed off some of her paintings (and paintings in progress) as part of a studio tour released on YouTube. She featured a piece with a painterly rainbow background, a painting of her boyfriend’s mother’s cat, a piece featuring rows of emojis (from heart eyes to an emoji listening to headphones). It’s all as saccharine as a Marilyn Minter photograph, optimistic like a cartoonish Kaws character and somewhat comically familiar, like a Ron English painting.
When did she become a visual artist, exactly? “I have loved art my whole life,” says Hilton. “I have been an artist since I was a little girl.”
It seems that now she is finally able to bare her soul to the public through social media by letting us into her studio. “I have built an art room in every home I’ve ever owned,” she says. “It’s so important for me to have that space in my house to be creative.”
Hilton is, without a doubt, a pop artist. By using imagery we’d find in the media, whether it’s Sonic the Hedgehog to diamond jewelry and emojis, there’s the same kind of cultural sampling she uses as a DJ to fuse together a set. Except in the past, pop art, which saw its rise in America and the U.K. through the 1950s, was predominatly dominated by men, like Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol. Even the female pop artists today, like Yayoi Kusama and Martha Rosler have only been acclaimed much later in life. It signals a shift we’re seeing, post #MeToo.
Hilton’s paintings are somewhat of mood boards, or even dream boards, where you lay out everything you want in life onto a surface, like a visual collection of goals, dreams and wishes. Hilton’s own artworks represent the visualization and realization of her own dreams.
“My I Dream Of Paris piece represents the dreams and goals I had for myself when I was young,” said Hilton. “It is almost like a mood board of everything I aspired to have or be like when I grew up.”
While it’s a two-dimensional artwork, it combines three dimensional elements. With collaged photos, magazine cut-outs, plastic toys, crystal rhinestones, as well as metallic and acrylic charms, it truly is a wild trip to every shelf in an art supply store.
“I love going to Michael’s Art Supply Store and Blick,” says Hilton. “I find my best fun sparkly objects on Etsy. Etsy has everything!”
Her influences range from modern art masters from the 1960s to pop artists and surrealists, as well as contemporary artists we see in art galleries today.
“I’ve always looked up to and loved Andy Warhol,” says Hilton. “He is such an iconic legend. I also love Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Kaws, Takashi Murukami, Ai Weiwei, Olivia Steele, Kaws and Salvador Dalí.”
In her I Dream Of Paris piece, she uses a photographic portrait taken from a recent cover shoot for Rollacoaster magazine, where she is wearing one of her favorite brands, Juicy. Making art, in itself could be channeling the same kind of energy required for posing through a photo shoot.
“I love listening to upbeat music that puts me in a good mood like Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream album,” said Hilton. “I also really love painting to chill beautiful music like any song by Rufus du Sol and Coldplay.”
Full interview: forbes.com
