Sylvester Stallone

Biography

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"I think I’m a much better painter than an actor. It’s much more personal and I’m allowed to just do what I want to do. Quite often in acting you have to play a certain part, you cannot speak as much as you want to speak. I suppose the heroes don’t talk much, you have to be very stoic.” — Sylvester Stallone

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Best known for famed roles in “Rocky” and “Rambo”, Sylvester Stallone’s first “real” love is painting. Since childhood he has identified his true calling as a visual artist and has even said that if offered the choice, he would spend his life painting instead of starring in movies.

“There is a public face and a private face,” Stallone said, “and I feel the same way about art. It’s a collage of emotions. And when you can transfer that onto the canvas, it’s an amazing feeling,”

Over the years Stallone has developed a highly individual style that comprises a bold use of paint and color, as well as symbolic tropes such as a recurring clock and cryptic text.

Stallone also uses painting as an aid in the development of the characters that he creates:

In describing the “Rocky” painting, created prior to writing the script, he said: “I try to visualize something before I put it into words. Words are very difficult and sometimes unforgiving. So if I could see what Rocky looked like, then perhaps I could write about him”