Artisan's Directory
Shane ‘Dready’ Aquârt
Shane Aquârt, who signs his art ‘Dready’, has a whimsical graphic style influenced by his rich mixture of cultural experiences: a Caribbean childhood and education at an English boarding school, a Canadian high school and a US college. Aquârt has illustrated several publications. His solo exhibition Cayman Panorama: Things That Exist Only in My Fading Memory was featured at the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands in 2013, and recently installed at the Owen Roberts International Airport as part of the NGCI’s Art at the Airport (2019). In addition to fine art, Aquârt has created work extensively used in merchandising, commercial graphics and interiors. His work can also be found in many public and private collections, including NGCI.
Q & A
Where are you from?
Jamaica
When did you start creating your art and what are your preferred materials?
Dready started as a doodle in my daily work books about 35 years ago, then about 15 years ago I did some post cards with Dready on them as a test that worked quite well: 12 years ago I started a business, January 2008, to market Dready. I stopped working on anything else in 2013 and became a full-time artist ...I work exclusively digitally.
What inspires you to create your pieces?
Lots of things – I do 30 something commissions a year and so those create their own inspiration because people have something they want me to say for them, and my own inspiration grows out of that as well ... But also daily life, images that we all consume so much of, a happy moment in a place, an idea that comes to you, any number of things.
What do you think are the most important and unique characteristics of the pieces/products you create?
They have their own style; there are things that Dready is ‘reminiscent’ of or things that vaguely resemble Dready; but it is definitely unique ... I have walked through art shows with 10’s of thousands of images and still not seen anything quite like Dready.
What do you expect for your creative future?
Only time will tell... You could have answered that question one way last month and another this month.
