Artist Bio

Bronze sculptor Shray is one of the few working artists today who employs the rare Subtractionist technique. Like Michelangelo who released the human form in stone, Shray unveils her forms in blocks of clay. Through the lost wax process, her forms come to life in bronze. Great care is taken in the creation of each limited edition bronze. Shray feels that before she will put her name on the bronze sculpture, it must be perfect.

Her simplicity of form has been compared to that of Henry Moore, Rodin and Brancusi. Over the last fifteen years Shray’s sculpture has received both national and international recognition in the form of awards and commissions. She is represented in galleries throughout the United States and is collected and exhibited internationally.

At age fifteen, Shray discovered the Greek sculpture, Winged Victory, at the Louvre in Paris and declared to her mother that she was to become a sculptor. She began her formal classical training with a full scholarship at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and continued her studies at the San Francisco Art Institute with a full grant. For eight years, Shray mentored with Italy's Piero Mussi, founder of the internationally renowned Mussi Artworks Foundry of Berkeley, California.

Shray intensively studied the work of Rodin in Paris and her simplicity of form has been compared to Brancusi and Moore. Shray's bronze sculpture is constantly evolving. Over the last fifteen years, Shray’s sculptures have received both national and international recognition in the form of awards and commissions. This celebrated sculptor is represented in galleries throughout the United States and is collected internationally. In order to capture the human emotions she strives for, Shray works full time in her Northern California studio. She shares her life with husband, Neal, a writer and historian.

Shray is delighted to announce that her bronze sculpture “Raising Tomorrow’s Olympic Champions” has been selected to travel throughout China and the world as part of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Chosen from a field of more than 2,600 entries from 82 countries and regions, it is one of only two American sculptures to garner the competition’s highest rating, the "Excellent Works" distinction. Shray’s “Raising Tomorrow’s Olympic Champions” will be competing for the gold medal. The International Olympics Sculpture Tour will travel to 23 major cities in China beginning June 2006 and on to international venues this autumn.