Right now, I’ll bet you’re asking, “B.Z., why aren’t you posting some of her paintings for us to see?”  Well, that’s because I do not have her permission to that…yet.  I hope I’ll connect with her this week to add them to this essay.  BUT if you live anywhere near Sonora, you should stop by the Post Gallery before Sunday, June 27th.  After that, Sherie’s work will leave the window (hopefully not  for long).  And you CAN go to her website…

Sherie Drake is one of the most compelling contemporary portrait artists that I have ever encountered.  Each of her pieces tells a story about the person in the image, a moment in the life of her subject. Her compositional approach reminds me of the well-known portrait and abstract artist David Hockney. Not at all in how the paintings look, but in how she approaches her subjects, giving the viewer a quick, private tryst. She is not afraid to “tell like it is,” raw, gritty and sublimely beautiful.

Along with this truth, Sherie Drake takes years of experience and training to bring paint to the canvas.  Her color composition is tight and clearly defined, yet her brushstrokes give a gesture of rush, hurry…extreme powerful energy.  I’ve visited her studio a few times and seen her works in progress.  So, I know she is not REALLY hurrying, but that exquisite implication of grabbing a snapshot of time exists in her paintings.  David Hockney worked the same way.  Some of his portraits seemed to pop out of a camera, grabbing the souls of his subjects and laying them out for eternity.  Sherie’s work has that same compulsion of forward movement, of allowing us to see deep into the heart.  You know that these people are not frozen and stiff.  We’re just getting a chance to capture one breath in a life.  Then their lives go on, as do ours.  Sherie lets us share that moment in triad:  The subject, the viewers, all held by Sherie’s guiding eye and hand.  In storytelling this idea of the triad comes up a lot as we over-analyze our work:  A threesome–The story, the listener and the teller–create this symbiotic moment in time.  Sherie has done the same.  Her paintings are just that…amazingly told stories.

Drake’s recent work has focused on soldiers currently serving abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was told that her own grandson has been on active duty in the Middle East.  I can only imagine the strange mix of pride and fear that would hold a grandmother, as one her dearest spends even one moment in harm’s way.  And how has Sherie chosen to focus those thoughts and concerns?  By creating a powerful tribute to her grandson and his “buddies in arms.”

No matter how you feel about war or these wars, you must see these portraits.  Her work is honest with great emotional depth. Too often artists try to embellish this kind of tribute work with a lot of extra fluff and flowers. But not Sherie. There you see the exhaustion, the fear, the innocence, even the bravado of young men in combat.  You feel the heat, the dry arid land.  You see these young soldiers as they catch a breath to rest, flashing us a “thumbs up.” You see them on patrol, or dealing with grief and fear of their own.  Again…raw, gritty, real.

If YOU haven’t stopped into the POST GALLERY to see Sherie’s paintings, please get there ASAP. Currently her pieces grace the North Window, the window composed as a Memorial Day tribute features what I will call  Her War Story Works. The pieces will hang for another 4 days. Stop by, take a moment to pause and reflect on the courage of these young people. Oh, yeah…And catch a glimpse of the powerful work of one of Tuolumne County’s most talented artists–Sherie Drake.

I’m B.Z. Smith….I tell stories….Here’s one.