"Shay creates images that are not so much life-like as like life. They are meditations on the blur between illusion and reality, shadow and substance, understanding and confusion. They are his unique way of expressing the unexpected grandeur always concealed withing the prosaically recognizable. His landscapes are evocations of the almost voluptuous arrangement of hills and woodlands that surround him in his studio. He paints more than he sees, yet never forgets the landscape before his eyes."

From "James Shay: Visions of More Than Can Be Seen," catalog essay by Charles Gardner

Here are representative paintings.