Today we’d like to introduce you to Shayne Brantley.
Shayne, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My name is Shayne Brantley and I am from Odessa, Texas. Odessa was founded in 1818 as a water stop for the Texas Pacific Railway and became a significant cattle shipping center. The discovery of oil in the 1920s transformed Odessa into an industrial hub for the burgeoning industry. To this day the cowboy culture of the cattle drive is always an undertone. Odessa’s semi-arid climate can be brutal, but mostly tentative; summers are hot and mostly clear and the winters are short, cold, snowy and windy.
Then there’s the Odessa Meteor crater. Formed over 60,000 years ago and spans 10 acres, it’s a veritable cosmic sign that we are not alone. That nature can throw a mean rock at you and leave an indelible impress. Oil isn’t just a commodity in Odessa, it’s a way of life; the skyline is dotted with pumpjacks, the Permian Basin’s mascot. During high school I worked at the Greyhound bus station which ferried more oil tool supplies than passengers, save the roughnecks that were the grease of the industry’s wheels.
I am a graduate of Odessa Permian High school (class of 1979, go Panthers!) which was the inspiration for “Friday Night Lights”. Needless to say, High School football in the state of Texas is the fabric of community life in towns like Odessa and the ethos engendered by it resonates in every aspect of the community’s identity. My father was a doctor and my mother was a mom and I have brothers and sisters.
All of this is to say that juxtaposition is my M.O. Whether that is of renderings, textures or colorfields, all of it emanates from this amalgam of the experience of place.
What was a middle class boy from West Texas to do except hang out in the back of the house and copy “PEANUTS” cartoons. That’s how it started. But by 1980, I had landed in Sherman, Texas at Austin College and took a drawing class. As an undergraduate in the early 1980s, I told myself to approach pieces without any preconceptions, but this became impossible after a while. I then approached the work with formal aspects being the primary consideration…until about two years in. It was at that point my instructor, Joe Havel, told me to, “Stop composing”. After that, juxtaposition combined with trying all sorts of approaches to what drawing and painting could be if I just tried not to try started a process that continues to this day.
In 1987, while completing my MFA at the University of Minnesota, I was awarded a Residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. This incredible opportunity bolstered my confidence and really provided the inspiration to go big. After graduate school, I saw a bit of the world and lived and worked in New York City where in addition to painting and drawing, drove a cab.
I currently reside on Galveston Island everything is about location. My studio is located in a 1940s era storefront located in midtown on 45th street, between Broadway and Seawall Boulevards. The building is simple and unpretentious with a feeling of comfortable decay. The space accommodates me and my work in a mutually satisfying way. We tolerate each other’s eccentricities and temperaments like the island tolerates its inhabitants, “We’re here, let’s make this work”. And we’ve made some pretty good work. The gulf breezes and salty air require that I maintain a storage space in Houston, Texas forty miles inland and for that I have a great team of logistics and installation personnel that are as much a part of my studio as the paints and brushes. Island life has its challenges, but the feeling is choice.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Obstacles and challenges are how life forms us and finding ways to overcome the challenges presented provides opportunities to face future obstacles with confidence. Plus there’s no avoiding them, so press on.
Obstacles and challenges also provide an opportunity to take stock of lessons learned. A primary lesson for any artist is to realize that a good team is required. This includes logistics, installation and public relations teams that make exhibitions happen and able to be seen. My studio is located on Galveston Island and I love it here, but without a plan and a team my paintings would stay here with me.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’ve always felt my art is fairly straightforward. It is neither ironic nor satirical. What I like to produce are pieces that are open and ethereal.
My technique is paint, pencil or ink deployed on metal, wood, canvas or paper and is almost sculptural in application; building up surfaces of different color and texture, then scraping back through them. The rendered images can be compliments or casualties of this process and are related to everything else by the relationships the viewers divine. Nonetheless, the building and scraping back through the layers during the process is a strategy and usually yields pleasingly unanticipated results. If not, more building and scraping and drawing. Eventually, the pieces find me where I find them.
The Residency at the Skowhegan School in Maine really provided the inspiration to go big. The paintings are ambitious in scale, “Popcorn as Asteroid” is 96” x 86” and “Chick” is 60” x 60”, both are in private collections in Houston. However, a recent piece, “Teacup” is 12” x 24”, paint on metal and more intimate. The drawings on paper are usually 44” x 30” with a few exceptions. Visit shaynebrantley.com for the whole show.
Core themes in my work are all over the map and juxtaposed to each other. What it all means at the end of the day is up to the viewer. Painting and drawing is what I do and to a greater extent who I am.
Joe Havel really opened a door of perception for me with those two words, “Stop Composing”. He has had the most influence on my work because he gave me a starting point, one I would not have arrived at on my own. Whenever I get stuck or frustrated, it’s a mantra; and I get back to work.
Growing up in Odessa, the world I’ve seen and lived in, all the stories of the great big environment we all share are influences for the work. Sometimes just the way an image catches my eye or an idea that pops into my head or a color on the side of an old house pricks the imagination. And in my process, I can always start again. There is nothing more liberating than finding yourself in front of a great big mess and taking a wire brush attached to the end of a drill and wiping the slate clean, seeing what’s left and starting again. As Samuel Beckett put it, “Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Experience tells me it’s true.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
As far as I am concerned, the art industry is always in flux, and there’s lots of room there. What makes pieces meaningful and why they matter are not for me to discern. Again, I work because I can, and derive a great deal of satisfaction from the process of making work. It’s a cliché because it’s true, “the medium is the message”. There’s just something about color, texture and imagery rendered on a large scale, or in an intimate way that creates its own signal of where it exists and finds itself. And that all of this can be achieved with pens, paint, paper, wood and metal is astonishing to me.
Working day to day, everyday is how I work. And I have no idea what I’ll realize next, but whatever that may be, it will find me when I find it. The industry’s not going anywhere…I’ll be here.
Pricing:
- Schoolboy Indian Paraphernalia paint on wood and metal 60″ x 48″ $6,500
- Ongoing Judgement paint on wood 81″ x 96″ $7,950
- U. of Chicago 1942 paint on wood, metal 72″ x 72″ $7,825
- Blue Blue Windows paint on board 96″ x 84″ $9,500
- Tea Cup paint on metal 24″ x 12″ $2,500
Contact Info:
- Website: https://shaynebrantley.com
Image Credits
All photography by Rick Wells, Houston, Texas.
