Courtesy Gallery 181 Fremont Residences San Francisco/Moanalani Jeffrey Photo Agency
John Steinbeck once said, “San Francisco is a golden handcuff with the key thrown away.” Indeed, San Francisco is a beautiful prison of imagination—a city so unusual it seems unreal. For the inimitable actress and now esteemed painter Sharon Stone, San Francisco was a place to die and be reborn as an artist. In her new exhibition, “My Eternal Failure,” on view at Gallery 181 at San Francisco's 181 Fremont Residences until August 31st, these days of vulnerability are explored in a series of large-scale, abstract paintings that exemplify Stone’s adeptness at shape, color, and composition. Heartbreak and a 2001 brain injury in San Francisco allowed Stone to see colors in a whole new way—her prismatic kaleidoscopic palette is like a psychotropic wellspring. “I want this exhibition to serve as a vehicle for self-forgiveness, and I hope it can help others do the same by letting go of societal stigmas and imposed perceptions,” says Stone. “In this way, failures become sources of strength, and to face them is to keep growing. The exhibition’s title My Eternal Failure is freeing for me.”
Jester, by Sharon Stone, 2023 (acrylic on canvas), 36” x 18”