Shane Somerset is the manager of the b brown gallery, and one of its
foremost artists. His art career took off about three years ago after a
chance meeting with
bonnie brown fergus. bonnie brown, the owner of
the gallery, was having renovations done at her home, and Shane was
one of the gentlemen there to do brickwork. By the way, the lack of caps
on bonnie's name is not an error, it is her artistic affectation. Shane
began to do work for bonnie and built a relationship with her,
Sandy
Wilkinson (another fabulous artist from b brown gallery) and eventually
met
Connie Winters. Shane took art classes from bonnie and was even
able to get some private tutoring from Connie Winters. Now three years
later he is one of the prominent artists in the area.
In an interview with Shane I was able to learn a lot about his philosophy
on art and the gallery business. Shane's simple philosophy about his own
art is, " If it is not there, it goes in the garbage". I found this out first
hand when a fabulous painting I wanted met the bad end of a scraper because it did not fully please him. When asked about the influence of his early days Shane says that,
"Bonnie's class helped me evolve into the why and
what and what made it good. Connie allowed me to bring out that person that was inside me and helped me find my
fingerprint." A short viewing of his work will attest that he has indeed found his unique "fingerprint". When asked
why oil paints not other mediums Shane says, "I am more of a purist. You know that oil paints are still oil paints...I
know that if someone is buying my work, I know that 100 years from now it will still be the painting they bought."
"My Job is to make you see what I see. When I was a little kid paintings and art is what I always excelled at. I knew I
might someday do something with it, just not when or where, or how."
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Shane Somerset
Shane at work in the Gallery |