Brad Pitt Is A Professional Sculptor Now

When Brad Pitt isn’t busy flinging himself about in action thrillers and putting out acclaimed films like Moonlight and 12 Years A Slave with production company Plan B, the actor loves nothing more than tinkering about in his art studio. Earlier this year he declared his love for The Great Pottery Throw Down, even. His love of art and sculpture runs so deep that he is now adding “artist” to his long list of roles, showing his works in public for the very first time. (And thus, completing his Hippie Dad rebrand.)

Speaking to My Year of Rest And Relaxation author Ottessa Moshfegh for GQ, the actor confessed he had taken up ceramics during lockdown. He befriended the British sculptor Thomas Houseago around this time, which has led to his first proper art show. Appearing in the Finnish city of Tampere alongside Houseago and Australian musician Nick Cave, Pitt told surprised visitors at the Sara Hildén Art Museum.

Showcasing nine of his own sculptures, Pitt said they were about “self-reflection. It’s about where I have gotten it wrong in my relationships, where have I misstepped, where am I complicit.” The actor reportedly turned to sculpture during his divorce from Angelina Jolie. “For me, it was born out of ownership of what I call a radical inventory of self, getting really brutally honest with me and taking account of those I may have hurt, moments I have just gotten wrong,” he said at the opening.

Pitt’s work appears as part of a larger exhibition of Houseago’s own work, alongside that of fellow artistic dabbler Nick Cave, who has also contributed his own ceramic work depicting “the life of the Devil in 17 stations” to the show.

“For Nick and I, this is a new world and our first entry. It just feels right,” Pitt said. His nine works include a house constructed out of driftwood, a plaster panel showing a gunfight, and a house-shaped silicone block, riddled with bullets.