PAUL STANLEY To Unveil New Paintings This Weekend

KISS guitarist/vocalist Paul Stanley will unveil three new paintings at his Wentworth Gallery exhibitions this weekend. One of the paintings, titled "Dream Catcher", can be viewed below.

Details of this weekend's Wentworth Gallery art exhibitions are as follows:

Friday, February 27, 2009 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Wentworth Gallery
The Shops at Riverside
171 Riverside Square
Hackensack, NJ

Saturday, February 28, 2009 from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Wentworth Gallery
The Mall at Short Hills
1200 Morris Turnpike
Short Hills, NJ

Stanley told RollingStone.com last year that he takes pleasure in knowing his art reaches different crowds — both KISS fans and art collectors.

"I see people at the gallery who will never go to a KISS show and people at a KISS show that will never go to the gallery. And then there are some people in between," he said. His pieces, mostly four-by-five foot acrylics done in bold colors with intense strokes, brought in $2 million in 2007. His originals fetch as much as $70,000, with limited-edition prints going to $1,000. Even KISS co-founder Gene Simmons, known more for his shrewd business practices than for his eye for art, bought one of Stanley's works titled "Statue of Liberty". "The monetary aspect validates it that much more for him," Stanley said.

When asked by INsite magazine what encouraged or prompted him to pick up the brushes and begin painting at this stage of his life, Stanley said, "About six or seven years ago I was getting divorced and I really, like many people in that position, had a lot going on and a lot that maybe needed to get released. A friend of mine, my best friend, said that I needed to paint and my having never really applied myself to painting, somehow that connected with me and I went out and bought canvasses and paints and brushes and all kinds of other supplies and just decided to throw caution to the wind. The only thing that I was clear on from the get-go was that I wasn't interested in making a flower pot look like a flower pot. I was more interested in painting a reality that didn't necessarily have to be a literal or visual depiction of something so I wanted to approach it more of a stream of consciousness, where perhaps instead of using words I was using colors and textures to put my emotions, or what was going on inside me, on canvas. It was purely a relief and, I guess, cathartic therapy for me that once other people started seeing clearly connected with them."