Jim Carrey Reveals His Surprising Talent for Painting in Viral Documentary Short
In the past few years, Jim Carrey hasn’t been popping up on screen quite as often as he used to. And while he’s still hard at work, he’s expressing himself through a new medium now: painting. In a new documentary titled I Needed Color, we get a glimpse at his passion — and talent — for fine art.
The six-minute documentary is going viral, with more than two million views since it was posted in late July. In it, the actor the reveals why visual art is such a safe haven for him. “I love being alive, and the art is the evidence of that,” Carrey tells the documentarian.
Carrey’s paintings are expansive portraits, from grandiose images of Jesus to more humble pictures of babies. They’re all vibrant, often colorful, and almost always gigantic. “When I really started painting a lot, I had become so obsessed that there was nowhere to move in my home,” he reveals. “Paintings were everywhere. They were becoming a part of the furniture, I was eating off of them.”
It might seem new to us, but Carrey says he’s been making art since he was a kid, when he would retreat to his room to sketch. “I was not the type of kid you could say as a punishment, ‘Go to your room.’ My room was heaven to me.”
Carrey, who also sculpts, says he switched from sketching to painting six years ago in an attempt to “heal a broken heart.” His artistic vision blossomed from there. “I think what makes someone an artist is that they make models of their inner life,” he says. “They make something physically come into being, as inspired by their emotions or their needs.”
What do you think of Jim Carrey’s new medium? Let us know @BritandCo!
(h/t IndieWire; photo via Kevin Winter/Getty)
