Sikkema Jenkins & Co Gallery
Erin Shirreff, Sunset Palace
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"Sunset Palace" by Erin Shirreff is a solo exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. The gallery’s high ceilings and expansive, neutral-toned walls create a white, open environment that perfectly complements Shirreff’s exploration of perception, materiality, and form. The generous spacing between artworks establishes a sense of circulation, allowing visitors to navigate sculptures like “Dusk Form.”
For example, Dusk Form, made from black and polished aluminum, is the exhibition's focal point. It plays with the viewer's perspective. From one angle, it appears sculptural, yet as one moves around it, it flattens into black or polished aluminum planes, challenging the viewer's initial perception of its form. A table of smaller three-dimensional steel models further emphasizes the fragmented nature of Shirreff’s work, consisting of multiple planes and angular shapes.
Her wall pieces also create layering and play on perspective. These framed pieces feature scans of materials, art, and vintage photography enlarged into textured patterns assembled into layered, abstract compositions. This can be seen in works like “Paper sculpture” which uses scanned material. Scans of stone, metal sheets, plaster, painted metal, and wood are printed on the aluminum sheets and then cut. The work creates layers through the material and allows for perception changes through cuts and layering, creating positive and negative space as the foregrounds and backgrounds intersect.
Shirreff’s various methods of cutting, scanning, and reimagining forms through a play on the viewer’s perspective is intriguing. Though some viewers might find the fragmented nature of the works challenging to understand, "Sunset Palace" offers a juncture between the medium of sculpture and photography, allowing viewers to contemplate perception.
This marriage of photography and sculpture as you have pointed out is super interesting. I tend to get bored by a lot of sculptural installations, but I find Shirreff's Paper sculpture to be intriguing because the mixed media aspect makes me want to linger and analyze the pieces further. Sunset Palace seems like something you really have to stand in front of to appreciate, but Paper sculpture transcends physical/digital display which is why I feel more intrigued by it. It reminds me of the optical illusion of the winding staircase, the way the textures ripple and weave together. It hits the nail of non-objective art that still tells somewhat of a sensory story straight on the head. Very compelling!
ReplyDeleteI think your description of the works is quite effective, especially your interpretation of reality and perception. I think you could elaborate more on the way that the sculpture (Dusk Form) morphs and changes, based on the angle from which you look at it. I am not quite sure if dimensionality is the right word for it, though. In the first paragraph, perhaps you could focus less on the space itself but rather describing the way works occupy the space, and how they contrast or blend into one another. I appreciate your analysis of materiality and form in your review.
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