Artists who are Actors

I chose these four because they are my favorites and because I find them and what they do inspiring. While some of these are both actors and artists (and musicians and writers)in the traditional sense, others have seemingly turned their lives into their craft and their craft into art.

Pyotr Mamonov is a living legend in Russia. He is recognized in part for his work in film and theater (cult classics like Taxi Blues, Needle and The Island), but mostly for his contribution to the underground music scene at the end of the Soviet era. He formed and fronted 'Zvuki Mu' - an alternative rock / indie / post-punk (that's how Wiki defines it, I'd call it Classic Russian Rock with a destinct aftertaste of psychedelia) band.

Viggo Mortensen is a man who hardly needs any introduction as far as film (and - to a certain degree - theater ) goes. He's been a painter, photographer and writer for about as long as he's been an actor. While I'm not a huge fan of his paintings, I love some of his poems (Ontario, 1991) and nearly all of his photography. There is passion in his work on and off screen - the authenticity that is so very rear. But there's something else about him. Whenever I think of the Camus words: 'The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion', I think of him. He seems to be completely and utterly free. Both as an artist and a man.

The two women on my list are a musician and an actress respectively, however, they are so much more than that. Each is a muse and an artist, and everything from their lives to their work is art in its purest form. They inspire and delight. They are my role models, both as artists and women.

The thing about Bjork and Tilda Swinton is, different though they may be, they are both so wonderfully strange.