THEA SCHRACK

Rapture

March 26th – April 30th, 2025

Bryant Street Gallery is excited to present Rapture, a series of ethereal, abstract acrylic works by Thea Schrack. This is Schrack’s fifth solo show with Bryant Street Gallery since 2013. This time, she dazzles with an array of swirling colors and eddying waves that evoke sound, wind, and water, yet seem to be captures of another world entirely. The exhibit is on display from March 26th to April 30th, 2025. The gallery and artist welcome the public to an opening reception on Saturday, March 29th, from 3-5 p.m.

Rapture is all activity, each composition a series of moments frozen in one frame. The paint flows in fantastical hues, at times billowing and dancing across the canvas, at others welling up in slow, methodical contemplation, but always in motion and dictated by the demand of an instant. Acrylics offer Schrack a loss of control that encourages her to flow with the medium, gracefully incorporating drips and slips and any other whims of the materials. Folded into the piece are spontaneous gestures that arise from the artist’s thoughts, emotions, and responses to stimuli–such as music–throughout her process. The result is a deep meditation on rhythm, flow, and ultimately, movement itself.

Having begun her artistic career in photography, Schrack has a unique perspective when it comes to painting. Even when first dipping her toes into photography, her process was fluid. Uninterested in realistic capture, she experimented with applying oils and encaustic to photos in order to add texture, depth, and luminosity. Her compositions became increasingly less pictorial as she implemented long exposure, which resulted in swaths of color fields that blurred the lines between photo and painting, representation and abstraction.

Schrack credits her turning point to “Ocean Sounds,” a soundscape of underwater recordings and music she listened to at Envelop Sound in San Francisco. “I went elsewhere, into the depths of the sea,” she says of the event. “It became a dimensional experience of sound washing around me in an alternate state of consciousness.” Shrack underwent a breakthrough that completed the transformation of the sea from a subject to an initial point of inspiration for experimentation, meditation, and transcendence. Thus, she was compelled to surpass the limits of photography and explore the potential of paint. Listening to music while working has become a staple of her artistic process, and the evidence of this can be seen in her undulating forms that simultaneously evoke watery movement and sound waves. Her artistic process is one of discovery, not documentation.

Rapture will be on view at 532 Bryant Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301 from March 26th to April 30th. For more images and information please visit the website at www.bryantstreet.com or email us at bryantst@mac.com.

Bio:

Thea Schrack received her B.F.A. in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. She was awarded the New Faces Award in fine art photography from American Photographer Magazine upon graduation. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group shows throughout the United States can be found in many distinguished collections. Thea Schrack lives and works in San Francisco.

Artist Statement:

I work in acrylic paint on canvas. My work is about emotion, motion, and form. The foundation of all my artwork is rooted in the natural world. The past decade, it has focused on ocean photography. This intense focus on a single subject was the conduit to these paintings–not in a literal sense, but rather as an emotional response to it. More recent influences are our local fog and horticulture. They both inspire me with ever-changing shapes and colors.

My painting technique started to change after listening to “Ocean Sounds” at Envelop Sound in San Francisco. I went elsewhere, into the depths of the sea. It became a dimensional experience of sound washing around me in a seemingly alternate state of consciousness. I’d been in the ocean’s womb and felt reborn as a wave crashed and returned me to land. After this experience three years ago, I felt a stronger urgency to paint, to let go of the past reality of being on the edge of the Pacific, and to go deeper into abstraction.

Listening to music while painting is a hugely important cultivator that keeps my rhythm and flow moving throughout these large-scale works.

This is my first solo show of paintings and my 5th solo show at Bryant Street Gallery since 2013.

Garden Fugue

Acrylic on canvas

54” x 43”

$6,200

Spring Sonnet

Acrylic on canvas

60” x 52”

Unknown Depths

Acrylic on canvas

64” x 72”

This Story Never Ends Acrylic on canvas

58” x 40”

Listen

Acrylic on canvas

64” x 50”

Ascension 1

Acrylic on canvas

52” x 60”

Bodies in Motion

Acrylic on canvas

52” x 65”

Southern Song

Acrylic on canvas

44” x 52”

Spring Is In You

Acrylic on canvas

60” x 20”

Surround Sound

Acrylic on canvas

64” x 72”