Erin Shirreff

Erin Shirreff's subtle and considered works across sculpture, video, and photography revolve around the material and temporal qualities of objects and images. Sensations of scale and bodily proximity, and the translation from one type of document to another are linking threads throughout. In the work Signatures, 2011, a pair of black & white prints suggest the unbound leaves of a book on mid-century minimalist sculpture, but the forms visible are in fact images of small models crafted by Shirreff. The durational video Roden Crater, 2009, offers the viewer an encounter with an extinct volcano in Arizona, which is also the site of an ongoing monumental Earth Work by James Turrell. The video seemingly captures this landscape undergoing spectacular atmospheric changes. Only at certain moments does the grain of a printed image becoming discernible, revealing the video to be a digital animation stitched together frame-by-frame from artificially lit images shot on the wall of Shirreff’s studio. As the world becomes increasingly absorbed by images which are not just mediated, but adapted, airbrushed and constructed, Shirreff’s investigation of how perception informs meaning feels astute and timely.

Erin Shirreff undertook a residency with the Zabludowicz Collection in Sarvisalo Finland, June 2012.