If you are a Southbay magazine enthusiast like me, chances are you already know Shane O’Donnell. For more than a decade, he has contributed distinctive portraits and vibrant photo essays on fashion, food and lifestyle that celebrate the unique character of the South Bay.
Bar, 2024
What you might not know is that this multitalented artist has recently made the leap from camera to canvas in a series of paintings of vintage neon signs and marquees.
“I love the rust and patina on the signs,” he explains. “There’s a visceral response when I see them.”
To communicate his sense of excitement, Shane challenged himself to elevate with paint what he captured with his camera. The resulting work is assembled in his first solo gallery exhibition, Neon + Rust, at Palos Verdes Art Center.
What makes a photographer with no formal art training decide to pick up a brush and paint symbols of a bygone era? It goes back to his small-town roots.
Warner Grand, 2019
Raised in Park Falls in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, Shane learned an appreciation for antiques from his mother and developed a love for nostalgia. A visit to his backyard studio reveals a carefully curated collection of period pieces, at the center of which is a vintage propeller—a gift from his father, a longtime private pilot. The beauty he finds in these objects, and the stories they tell, became the inspiration for his sign paintings.
“I’m documenting the parts of Americana I love. Some of the work I’ve photographed and painted is already torn down. I can’t paint fast enough; I want to save them visually.”
Storytelling is an important component of Shane’s work, both as a photographer and a painter. When he decided to explore a career in photojournalism, he was determined to learn from the best. He earned his degree from the prestigious School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, Columbia.
Following graduation, he was one of two interns selected to work with Kansas City-based commercial photographer Nick Vedros, best known for his legendary Kodak and Apple computer campaigns.
Cortez, 2023
Shane recalls, “I didn’t know much about him except that I thought, Well, that’d be great to learn. The internship was six months long. I got paid lunch.”
When it was time to move on, Shane was faced with the realization that to pursue a photography career, he would have to live in either New York or Los Angeles. Tired of the Midwest cold and snow, he chose Los Angeles. Having established a practice as a freelance advertising and editorial photographer, he has been happily living and working in the South Bay for 22 years.
Despite this success, eight years ago Shane found himself looking for a creative outlet that would stretch him artistically. Years earlier he’d collected weathered objects from a local antique shop and photographed them for a series he called The Beauty of Decay.
Los Angeles, 2020
Working from these photographs, he endeavored to replicate the images in paint. The artist confesses that his early attempts were rough.
“I gave them away to my family and friends. They were tragic. I just kept painting, little by little. I wanted to become more serious.”
As he began to gain technical proficiency and recognition for his talent, Shane embarked on the challenge of painting his current obsession: neon signs. His process involves taking multiple photographs of the signs, designing the composition on his computer and then transferring the outline onto a canvas before applying paint. Although photorealistic in nature, the finished canvas never completely matches his original photograph.
While Shane likes to take artistic license with his painting, he feels a sense of purpose in his work.
Park Theater, 2022
“I’m documenting the parts of Americana I love,” he explains. “Some of the work I’ve photographed and painted is already torn down. I can’t paint fast enough; I want to save them visually.”
In addition to his soulful attitude about preserving the past, Shane brings a keen eye for composition and a dramatic sense of perspective to his paintings. With images like Warner Grand and Bar that extend beyond the edges of the canvas, seen from a worm’s-eye view, the larger-than-life signs appear heroic. He is, first and foremost, a storyteller.
When asked what he likes best about this body of work, Shane replies, “I love the way it evokes another time period, and I’m trying to make it look a little more modern. I don’t want to live in the past, but I love bringing that forward.”
Shane O’Donnell: Neon + Rust is on view at Palos Verdes Art Center through April 11.
