Is Hunter Biden planning an art exhibition? Here's how painting kept him 'sane' during drug addiction recovery
Hunter Biden has been in the news for quite some time. President-elect Joe Biden’s son said that his “tax affairs” were under federal investigation, according to our recent report. In a statement released on December 9, Hunter said, “I learned yesterday for the first time that the US Attorney's Office in Delaware advised my legal counsel, also yesterday, that they are investigating my tax affairs."
"I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors,” he said in the statement that was sent out via Joe Biden's transition team.
Hunter has become a target for President Donald Trump and his supporters in recent months. They have accused him of profiting off his political connections. Allegations of corruption relating to Hunter’s work in Ukraine, at the time his father was vice president and leading the Obama administration’s dealings with the Eastern European nation, have been made by the Trump administration.
However, this time he is in the news for his art. According to Page Six, sources have informed them that Hunter is signing a deal as an artist to be represented by New York’s Georges Bergès Gallery. An announcement and exhibition of his work are being planned for next year.
Hunter Biden and his art
Earlier this year, Hunter opened up about his connection with art to The New York Times. The 50-year-old admitted he had made a lot of mistakes in his life — he has been open about his history of drug addiction — but becoming an artist, he said, wasn’t an impulsive decision. He said painting “is literally keeping me sane. For years I wouldn’t call myself an artist. Now I feel comfortable saying it.”
He even transformed his Hollywood Hills home’s pool house into an art studio. Hunter has no formal training as an artist, but shared that he has sketched on and off since age seven and that he wasn’t experimenting: “It’s something I’ve taken seriously for a long time but hasn’t necessarily been for public consumption.”
In the NYT story, Biden opened up how art has been therapeutic for him. “I was addicted to crack for four years,” he said. “I went through a really long period of addiction and I was at a point where I didn’t read, write, think. I don’t do things halfway. That can be a problem.” Painting, he said, “puts my energy toward something positive. It keeps me away from people and places where I shouldn’t be.”
He added, “I want to protect this place. The one thing I have left is my art. It’s the one thing they can’t take away from me or conflate with anything else.” The story also noted that Hunter, at the end of 2019, had set out to find gallery representation and exhibit his work.
Georges Bergès has a gallery in SoHo and another in Berlin and also represents Sly Stallone — for whom the gallery staged his first solo show — and Todd Williamson. The gallery did not respond to multiple requests for comment and Hunter’s attorney George Mesires didn’t get back to Page Six.
These remarks were made by individual organizations, MEAWW cannot confirm them independently nor does it support these claims being made on the Internet.