Though the fine art world has its own ecosystem of celebrities, occasionally, stars from the music, movies, and television scenes will plant a flag in a different medium. The year 2024 saw a lot of cross-pollination from different creative worlds, with rock stars revealing their clandestine ceramics practices (as in Nick Cave’s case), or by an entire career in cinema being reframed as one giant fine art career (as in Miranda July’s). Below, we take a look at some of the fascinating conversations the Artnet News team held with celebrities famous for work in other mediums, and how art impacts creativity, writ large.

‘I See Color When I Sing’: Grammy-Nominated Singer Jewel on Her Turn to Painting
By Margaret Carrigan, May 2, 2024

Jewel pictured with Mazda by Sam Gilliam in the Contemporary Gallery at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art January 3 – 4, 2024. Photo Courtesy of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Another musician who has quietly been building up an arts career while their performing career soared is country artist Jewel. The “You Were Meant For Me” singer has synesthesia, which she explained leads her to see color when she sings, and informed her painting and sculpture practice. “I think this is the most inspired I’ve ever been,” she told Margaret Carrigan, “as if I’m back at the very beginning of my career.”

‘The Track Record Is Disastrous’: Musician Nick Cave on His Cautious Return to Art
By Kate Brown, May 6, 2024

Nick Cave glazing “Devils.” Photo: Liv & Dom Courtesy: Nick Cave and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels

The musician known for his time as the lead man of the Bad Seeds hosted his first art show this year in Brussels at Xavier Hufkens, and admitted to writer Kate Brown that he’s aware he’s an outsider in this world. “The band just kind of took off but my art career didn’t because I was preoccupied,” he stated. However, his work on view at his show “The Devil — A Life” suggests that Cave has been practicing diligently at working with ceramics.

Art We Love: A Spellbinding Ode to Creation
As told to Naomi Rea, July 8, 2024

Patricorel, Legalize (2023). Courtesy the artist.

Nigerian Afrobeats star Mr Eazi told Naomi Rea why Patricorel’s painting Legalize (2023) reminds him of “the commitment and it reminds me of the love that I’ve come to experience and the deeper level of the commitment between two people,” and the story of how the piece originally transfixed him on a trip to New Orleans.

Art We Love: REM Frontman Michael Stipe on Bruce Nauman’s Living and Breathing Sculpture
As told to Min Chen, July 16, 2024

Michael Stipe. Photo courtesy of Fondazione ICA Milano.

Michael Stipe has been a prolific photographer since he was a teenager, and his practice—spanning portrait photography of other celebrities and experimentations in shadow and light—has become quite popular over the last decade, and got him a solo show at ICA Milano in 2023. Here, he told us about an artwork he loves, Bruce Nauman’s A cast of the space under my chair (1965–68).

Indie Rock Musician Adam Green’s ‘Hybridized’ Art Gets a Showing in New York
By Anni Irish, August 14, 2024

Adam Green. Photo: Megan Hullander.

“I think my whole process is just pretty much that I walk around the city and I write in my notepad and think freely. Then I just go through my notes later and make them into my works. It’s sort of a museum of memory to walk around Manhattan,” said Moldy Peaches’s frontman Adam Green, who had a solo show at Dimin this year titled “Transfiguration of the Comedian.”

Venus Williams on the Latest Stop in Her Art Journey: Hosting a Photography Podcast
By Sarah Cascone, August 21, 2024

Venus Williams recording the podcast “Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape” in May 2024
Photo by Stefano Ceccarelli, courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

After teaming up with the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh to host the institution’s new podcast, “Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape,” tennis star and art collector Venus Williams sat down with Sarah Cascone to discuss environmental issues, her journey starting out as a collector, and emerging artists that she loves.

‘Sharing the Truth’: Julian Lennon on the Transformative Power of Photography
By Vittoria Benzine, August 29, 2024

Julian Lennon, Charlene Wittstock #4. Courtesy of Le Stanze della Fotografia.

“Taking photos was secondary to the missions at hand. It was only after these trips, that when I got home, I would sit in front of my computer, and look at all the images of my travels, and think, I might have something to share,” said Lennon of his photos taken with the White Feather Foundation, which has connected girls with higher education in Kenya and provided disaster relief in Ecuador. The photos went on view this year at Le Stanze della Fotografia in Italy.

FKA twigs Choreographs Her ‘Healing Journey’ at Sotheby’s London
By Margaret Carrigan, September 16, 2024

FKA Twigs poses for a portrait infront of her drawings during a preview of her artwork The Eleven. Photo: Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images.

FKA twigs released a performance work in tandem with her single, “Eusexua,” this September at Sotheby’s. The performance was also accompanied by sketches from the artist’s notebooks of the different movements and Eusexua concepts, as well as Polaroid images and large-format prints of Twigs performing the movements, taken by her partner and collaborator, photographer and filmmaker Jordan Hemingway.

Is There Anything Miranda July Can’t Do?
By Sonia Manalili and Kate Brown, October 3, 2024

Miranda July in New York, 2022. Photo: Ilya S. Savenok / Getty Images for National Geographic.

The filmmaker, author, and artist looked back at her career during her major retrospective at Fondazione Prada in Milan: “I was making work in this space that doesn’t have to know what it is. That was always the draw of art as opposed to feature filmmaking or writing fiction. It can retain its mystery in terms of form.”

Pop Star Robbie Williams Takes a Trippy Turn Into Ceramics
By Caroline Roux, October 9, 2024

Robbie Williams. Photo: Moco Amsterdam.

Not just a hit-maker, Robbie Williams teamed up with a pottery earlier this year to drop a pair of ceramic busts—of Jesus and the Pope, no less. “I know what people think about celebrities doing art, and I feel the same way,” he said. “Fuck off, keep it to yourself.” Good thing he hasn’t.

Art We Love: Musician and Actress Kate Nash on Tracey Emin’s Fearless Art
As told to Min Chen, October 11, 2024

Kate Nash. Photo: Alice Baxley, courtesy of Kill Rock Stars.

“I remember going to see a Tracey Emin exhibition when I was a teenager. I just loved a lot of the writing and sewing and words in her work. I really was drawn to the mess of being a woman, because we’re so often being presented with the falseness of perfection,” singer-songwriter Kate Nash waxed poetic about the YBA artist’s impact on her creativity and career.

Why Rock Icon Chrissie Hynde Is Embracing Painting: ‘You Can Hide Yourself’
By Amah-Rose Abrams, December 10, 2024

Chrissie Hynde. Photo © Jill Furmanovsky.

The Pretenders frontwoman has been painting long and hard enough that she’s amassed a warehouse full of artworks. Some recently went on view in London, during which she gamely opened up to us about her art practice and creative inspirations. “I’m always too fast. I don’t contemplate enough—I just start painting,” she said. “So, if I’m near a bunch of flowers or my dog, I paint what I see. Lately my laziness has led me to more abstractions.”