Charcoals are the chosen medium for April Branco's debut show.

The young artist mainly sold her work at Harbour Nights, in salons, restaurants and other venues, but she is about to open this evening at the Bermuda Society of Arts for her first-ever solo show.

Miss Branco, who is only 21, told The Royal Gazette about how she came to produce a line of work that is of a sensual nature.

All in all, she has produced an amazing body of work, but she is still finding it difficult to believe that she is about to debut.

"I'm running around getting work to the framers, and talking about it," she said.

"And then it suddenly hits me, 'I'm having a show! I'm really having a show at City Hall! Am I nuts? I mean, what am I thinking!

"But then it all makes sense when I am sitting at the easel or in the class with (artist) Sharon (Wilson) and everyone else. It's like, this is where I am supposed to be and I almost resent having to go into the office afterwards."

Miss Branco explained Voicing wanting to do art full-time this way: "I've decided that I am going to stick it out where I am, my boss is very understanding.

"In fact, her sister is an artist who used to be here and now she is in Canada, I believe. So she is familiar with artists and our temperaments, so she cuts me a lot of slack, bless her. I work part time, so I have time for class, and time for Harbour Nights, and it is a flexible schedule with good pay. I like it there but eventually I am hoping to make art my full-time career, it's where my heart is.

"But I am also afraid to make that leap."

In contrast, she admitted that it was not as hard as people think it is.

"When young people or friends come down to see me at Harbour Nights, they are like, 'I can't believe you are down here,' but, I'm like, me too," she said.

"I've had a push and I never knew my limitations, so I never thought, 'I can't do this' or 'I'm not old enough' or whatever. My dad was like, 'Do Harbour Nights!'

"And I went down there with Asian Art and it didn't fly."

She then put her work in the Trimingham's windows.

"I had just finished some African work that I had done and from there people were calling me," she said.

"They gave me a whole window to myself."

Two years ago, Miss Branco had been attending the Bermuda College.

"Someone was talking to me about Sharon Wilson, but I was at the College and I learned charcoals," said the young artist.

"And I've been doing it ever since."

At Harbour Nights, she had an interesting and thought provoking interaction with a fellow Bermudian artist.

"Because I am the only one down there that does black and white art and my subject matter, and because everyone else does hibiscus, water scenes, I had a lady come across the street from an art stand and put out her hand and said, 'I want to shake your hand. I want to congratulate you for stepping outside the box and doing something different, you are not like the rest of us prostituting ourselves to these tourists. Good luck to you'. And she just walked off.

"That said something to me, and to hear it from another artist, it said to me that I am not just some young upstart and I have a place here and other artists come by to see my new work and they talk to me about it and congratulate me.

"So I guess it has been encouraging."

This year she will be doing Harbour Nights in both Dockyard and Hamilton and she may do St. George's.

"At Harbour Nights I had people coming from all over the world and I wholesaled some things to a lady in Canada for her gift shop and I've had people in the States putting them up in all sorts of offices to hang in their waiting rooms.

"I've had people buying stacks of pictures and it is always good advertising, but it is not as easy to find me online, because I have Googled myself and my pieces."

Studying with Sharon Wilson has opened a new passion – pastels. "I want to move out of charcoal, but I'm not sure if I totally want to disembark from the charcoal train," Miss Branco said. "I am enjoying Sharon's class so much and I am just hating on her," she laughed.

"We all put out our work at the end of class for her to critique and sometimes she brings in her pieces and I'm like, 'put them away, please!' It's disgusting. It is amazing'."

Miss Branco does not take her good fortune for granted.

"I really appreciate all the support that I have received from everybody, because sometimes you feel that you are alone in this and then it gets really daunting," she said.

"Like in the music business, sometimes you get rejected, rejected, rejected and then finally they make it, and it's like, 'I told you'.

"Whereas I've just been saying, 'thank you, thank you to everyone'."

Although not present herself when things were quite segregated on the Bermuda art scene, Miss Branco, who is of Bermudian and Portuguese Bermudian heritage, is grateful to those who passed through before her.

Miss Branco said: "I think things have come along way, but when I talk to some people they are like, 'really?'

"It is all of them along the way who have made it possible for us now, so I am very grateful because it takes a long time for things to change.

"Look right now you have a black man running for US president and a woman, who would have thought such a thing 50 years ago?

"If we had said any such thing to Rosa Parks, she would have said, 'What?'

"So it takes a long time for things to change."

When asked about the sensual nature of her work, she said: "I never really intended for it to be that way, but that is what I am always drawn to.

"I don't know why, but I find human relationships most interesting, whether it is father and son, mother and daughter, husband and wife or two kids together. It is all based on feeling and that is something that Sharon has been encouraging us in. Many times I would take a photo and make it my own, but she has been encouraging us to photograph models, so that by the time that it gets down to the finished piece of art that feeling comes across to the viewer."

Ms Wilson's encouragement of her use of pastels has opened a new avenue for Miss Branco's debut show, however, which will have both charcoal drawings and pastel still-lifes on display.

"The colours blending together can knock your socks off," said Miss Branco of working with pastels. "Sharon said 'you are enjoying it and it will give you a break from the hands and faces and limbs and concentrating on the colour, blending and the lighting of the piece'.

"But it is new, the photography is new, the lighting is new and photographing models and making the painting from scratch is new."

Her show opens at the BSoA in People's Gallery B this evening at 5.30 p.m.