Not Sorry Art: A Look at the West Texas Series

Sari Shryack is an Austin, Texas based painter with a bold social media presence and an even more bold body of work. Sari’s work is an excellent example of contemporary fauvism blended with other strong modern art influences. The West Texas Series highlights complex landscapes from the state of Texas, including focus on national parks within the state. 25 paintings varying in size and scenery merge the beauty of multiple stylistic influences for an informed, contemporary approach to landscape paintings.

"Lighthouse Trail" by Sari Shryack

The full West Texas Series is brilliant to digest. Electrifying warm tones of pinks, reds and yellows highlight rock formations and rich desert landscapes, while vivid violet and green tones filling shadows and creating water scenery adds contrast. Desert foliage such as cacti and other shrubbery are brushed with yellow-green hues, which compliment the bright blue sky with pink and violet

clouds that flow seamlessly within the composition. Quick movements focused on brief shape analysis in this series mimics the post-impressionistic style, popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s. There is little focus on exact realistic accuracy. The strokes laid on the canvas reflect a quick interpretation of the setting before the artist in order to capture the scene’s basic underlying structure. Topical additives such as reflection of light are not the primary focus, but the structure of form builds through the process of layering paint.

Color analysis is the real focus in Sari’s work. This is especially true in the West Texas Series, but also in most of Sari’s work. This is where the fauvist influence comes into the picture. Color choice in Sari’s work is heavily focused on non-local color, which means color that is not found in the original scene. It is influenced by far more warm or far more cool tones, making the scene vibrant and dynamic. Fauvism, according to Susie Hodges author of The Short Story of Art, is categorized by “vivid color and free brushwork” and uses “intense color to describe light and space to convey uplifting emotion”. Sari does precisely this, using fluorescent versions of color to push and pull atmospheric perspective. Line work from the under painting assists, but the real magic happens because the intensity of color pulls objects forward in a composition, or lack of intensity pushes it back.

Another component that allows for a dynamic end product is the use of palette knife application. This kind of application allows for a unique effect that adds texture, and line in addition to the original mapping that comes through in the final composition. This method pulls influence from abstract expressionists who use a variety of application methods in order to make a work active. Sari has been experimenting with this technique in recent works, and many of the works in the West Texas Series showcase this newly acquired skill. Always willing to adapt and change, this added technique shows just how malleable the artist’s skills are. Being able to change one’s practice just for sheer exploration and new discovery isn’t always an easy thing for an artist to do. Sari’s constant curiosity on how to define an image on a surface is what makes her art so impactful.

The combination of impressionistic interpretation, vivid color exploration and palette knife application ties together the West Texas Series for a blended and informed approach of painting. Providing this kind of interaction between elements allows for Sari’s painting interpretation to be multifaceted and unique. With more exciting things to come, Sari is set up for creating a lane of her own in the art world.

Shop The West Texas Series and more here.