Artist Bio

Shane Hemberger was born in 1972 in Colorado. A was an artist who did pastel drawings of people and animals. She would let Shane have some of her paper and pastel to scribble on and so set his destiny in motion. At 5 years old, Shane and his family moved to Oklahoma, and they have lived there ever since. He did caricatures of classmates and drew creatures and such all through grade school, but began more serious work as he approached junior high and high school, always seeming to focus in on the human figure, which might include full body anatomy drawings or just hands or maybe portraits.

After high school, he joined the Marine Corps for four years, where he continued to draw and paint when time allowed. After his four-year tour was done, Shane used the G.I. Bill he earned to put himself through college where he got his bachelor’s degree in fine art. Since this time, he has participated in many group exhibitions as well as solo shows around the state of Oklahoma as well as done some commission work.

Piece Description

Being a figure painter, adapting his skill set of painting organic objects to a mechanical object like the AAA was challenging, he says. He was used to creating objects that are soft-edged and irregular, so taking on a subject that was cold and geometric was a bit strange. But in some odd way the final painting retained the very organic and fluid qualities found in his figure painting style.

In the process of creating his pieces, he has always worked strictly as an oil painter. Unlike many artists who experiment with different mediums and materials, Hemberger sticks with the simple oil on canvas formula and does most of his experimentation with form, color, and composition within this simple medium. As with the “AAA” painting, he builds his own canvases from scratch, finding a satisfaction that all aspects of the work come from his own hands. With this simple process, he continues sharing his artistic vision across the state.