Art and Design

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With the news that Miley Cyrus is to enter the world of visual arts, we set our art critic to work assessing what happens when musicians pick up paintbrushes. He's not keen ...

Miley Cyrus sculptures to be exhibited in New York

Why do musicians feel the need to try their hands at visual arts? If you are successful in one creative field, you are probably wisest leaving it at that. It's not a given that creative talent will cross over from playing stadium rock to putting brush to canvas or making sculptures, as Miley Cyrus has now done. After all, Picasso never went on tour performing the Spanish gypsy music he loved. And yet, something drives one rock star after another to that desperate resort, the celebrity art exhibition. So how do the rock artists rate as visual artists?

Bob Dylan

To start at the top, in every way. Bob Dylan is not only the Keats of rock'n'roll but the Lucian Freud as well. Or at least the Maggie Hambling. OK, let's resist the hype that surrounds Mr Tambourine Man: his paintings are not masterpieces, and we would not be looking at them if he were not famous. But he does seem very serious about his art. He came out as an amateur painter a few years ago after concealing this aspect of his life for years. It is clear from this decent example of his meat-and-potatoes painting how much time he has spent drawing and looking. There's a basic toughness and competence to it — some of his intelligence shines through. The themes, too — the imagery of race, politics and the blues — nicely illustrate the potent imaginary America of Dylan's songs. There is nothing embarrassing about his art. It underscores and enriches his achievement as a myth maker.

Ronnie Wood

There is no point at all to Ronnie Wood's art. Let's hope it is an enjoyable pastime for him. This naive painting of British pop heroes is as deep and authentic as Carnaby Street — the union jack is a sign of its stupidity. The portraits are empty "iconic" masks, not intimate studies that reveal anything new about their celebrated subjects. In fact, this has a crazy teenaged quality to it. How does he get away with exhibiting such an inane daub? Well, because he's Ronnie Wood. But fame is no guarantee of artistic ability. This could just as easily be a painting by a Big Brother finalist as a guitar hero — it has absolutely nothing special or even personal about it.

Marilyn Manson

Call the art police! A serious crime has been committed! Marilyn Manson's painting of two heads emerging from fingers is something that belongs in a Salvation Army store (in the U.S.) or car boot sale (for British readers). It is hilarious in all the wrong ways. Is it meant to be shocking, moving, funny or "surreal"? All it really is, is stupid and incompetent. The fact that he seems to have tried hard — look at those carefully applied colours — just makes it all the more strange. Even Damien Hirst's paintings are better than this. Marilyn Manson works hard to shock, and here he succeeds in being genuinely creepy, but not on purpose. Pass by and don't look, kids. You don't want this in your head.

Paul Stanley

Sweet paintings of hearts? Aw. Paul Stanley of Kiss is a big softie, it seems. He's also not an artist, not by any stretch of the imagination. His heart painting is completely daft and amateurish, something you would struggle to praise if your child painted it. Seriously, what's it meant to be saying? What's meant to make it worth our time? It is frankly sickening that such dreck can be seen as "art" simply because it was painted by a musician. It has the avant garde thrill of a Hallmark card and the poetry of a toilet roll ad. It's rubbish. What else is there to say?

Paul Simonon

Punk nostalgists may well be moved by this painting by the former bass player in the Clash. Under a sky illuminated by Rubensesque light smashing apart the clouds, it shows a London of terraced streets and a derelict Battersea power station. While presumably showing the present day, it evokes for me the London of 1977, the old, lost Britain in which punk started. It is clearly a very sincere art effort. He has worked at it, with some worthy results. Many people would be proud to have painted it. What raises it from pure amateur art to something someone might reasonably want on their wall is its association with punk and an afterglow of the passion of those days.

Joni Mitchell

The singer-songwriter actually has ... a style. Obviously Joni Mitchell has a style in music, but she has a style as an artist, too. Like Bob Dylan, she makes paintings that are worth a second look. Perhaps a third. It seems after all that the greater the musical and lyrical talent, the more chance there is of their art being good as well. Perhaps it is too much to see the repeated green hue of her artworks as a reflection of Mitchell's ecological imagination. At least, I hope their meaning is not that clumsy. She's patently aware of modern art, au fait with Munch and Warhol, and is making art that really matters to her, instead of just being a celebrity show-off.