He used to paint his face black and white before strutting onstage to play heavy metal riffs in front of thousands of screaming fans.

But these days, Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley is reinventing himself as a painter, putting acrylic on canvas in a private studio next to the pool behind his posh Beverly Hills home.

The 55-year-old front man for the legendary makeup-wearing rock band has produced about 30 pieces that are being sold in galleries across the country. He is finding a receptive audience.

Since exhibiting his work through the Wentworth Gallery chain in February, Stanley has sold roughly $2 million in original paintings and prints, with pieces going for as much as $75,000.

“The amount of sales has been staggering,” the soft-spoken rock icon said recently at his house. “That, to me, is a symbol of people embracing the art. But if I look at it purely as dollars, then I move away from what got me into this in the first place.”

When he started painting seven years ago, he did not intend to sell his artwork. At the time, painting provided an outlet through which he could vent the frustration of a painful divorce.

He eventually put one of his works on a wall of his house. The encouragement he got from friends led him to continue.

His subjects range from his father to the Statue of Liberty to abstract shapes anything, he said, that reflects his emotional state at the time. It’s different from songwriting, however.

“When I paint, the options are limitless there is no framework, except the edge of the canvas, and anything I can do in there is up to me,” he said. “In songwriting, there are very set rules.”

While he spends much of his time with his wife and 1-year-old son these days, Kiss is still performing. And Stanley still wears leather pants that only a rock star could pull off or pull on.

But painting is now one of his primary creative pursuits.

Stanley had 14 well-attended exhibitions of his art this past year and has another 14 scheduled in 2008, including shows Jan. 4 and 5 in New York.

“For somebody that’s a new artist, he’s been doing very well,” said Michael O’Mahony, chief executive of Miami-based Wentworth Gallery Holding Inc., which operates 31 galleries across the country. “His abstract work struck me as being very good the emotion that is in the pieces comes out.”

Kiss fans often show up to the gallery exhibitions to meet Stanley, but buyers aren’t always fans.

Stanley painted portraits of himself and band mates, which he thought would be among his best sellers. But as it turns out, the portraits are some of his least popular pieces.

“The people who are coming to the galleries, I’d say nine out of 10 of them are not interested in buying portraits of Kiss,” said Stanley.