Artist, painter and occasional illustrator, Terri Shay isn’t afraid to herald in dramatic color. In fact, her artwork revels in it. Her paintings feature radiant swirls of colors bent to form exquisite odes to nature’s beauty. “I see patterns and rhythm in nature,” she explains of her muses. But not content to simply paint exactly what she sees, Shay will take a tree or flower and modify them, playing with their size, hue and shapes. “I like to rearrange what I see and heighten the color—I like the freedom of experimenting and using my imagination,” she says.
While Shay’s work doesn’t quite fall into any predetermined category of art style, at times, her work leans surrealistic in tone. And when pressed, she’ll point to the great impressionists of the early twentieth century as her artist forebears. “I like how they worked with texture and their use of color in such an expressive way,” she explains.
But Shay didn’t start working in bold hues. From Ohio originally, she got a degree in illustration and fine art and was recruited from art school right away to be a professional illustrator. After this, she found her way to freelance work and odd art jobs.
Moving to St Louis in 1998 helped her transition her artwork and she started work on a master’s degree in fine arts. It was then that she started falling in love with using colors, a love cemented even further when her professors pointed out that painting could be more versatile. “I really liked the freedom it afforded. I felt like I could experiment with my art. Suddenly, every landscape I created was heightened with over-the-top colors or reimagined proportions.”
Jump to today, and Shay continues to weave her own take on artistic expression. She just finished a series she calls, “Dutch Re-mix.” “Here, I work with Dutch paintings, but I re-arrange the design and some of the elements,” she says. Next, she’s planning on using Brothers Grimm’s Fairy tales and other classic folklore to inspire artwork focused on an animal narrative. “I’ve always been interested in classic stories involving friends in animal form,” she explains. “This exploration returns to the classic ‘tails’—think rabbit tails, fox tails and any other tails—as a play on the word tale.”
Aside from local galleries, Shay’s work is available on her website that she updates every month along with a monthly newsletter. “These update optional collectors on current shows or upcoming shows, local or out of town. Plus, I’m open to commissions,” she says.
