Selected Works
Oil Paintings
Large-scale abstract paintings. Original oil on canvas, available for purchase and commission.
Selected Works
About
Shane Conner is an abstract painter based in Grafton, Wisconsin, working in oil on large-scale canvas. His process centers on the squeegee — dragging, compressing, and revealing layers of paint in gestures that are deliberate but never fully controlled.
The work draws from Gerhard Richter's approach to abstraction, where each pull of the blade is a negotiation between what's planned and what the paint decides to do. Color palettes are selected from scientific colormaps — mathematical systems designed for perceptual clarity — giving the work an unusual chromatic logic beneath the physical texture.
Shane's background in data science informs how he thinks about color relationships, but the paintings themselves are entirely analog: oil paint, a squeegee, and the accumulated decisions of each session.
Process
Each painting begins with a set of colors drawn from scientific colormaps — gradient systems built for perceptual uniformity. These palettes were designed to represent data, but they produce color relationships that feel both rigorous and alive.
The colormap is a starting point, not a destination. Once paint hits the surface the process becomes reactive — responding to what each layer reveals, pulling in new colors, finishing earlier than planned, or abandoning the original map entirely. It's flexible and experimental, guided more by what's unfolding on the canvas than by any fixed scheme.
Layers of oil are applied and then dragged with a large squeegee. Each pass partially reveals or buries what came before — additive and subtractive at once. What remains is a record of that conversation between intention and material.
Sample colormaps: Viridis, Turbo, Batlow
Get in Touch
Available for sale, commissions, and local pickup in the Milwaukee / Ozaukee County area. Shipping available for all works.
shane@shaneconner.comFree local delivery within 30 miles of Grafton, WI