JTF (just the facts): A total of 5 photographic works, framed in black and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the main gallery space, the entry gallery, and the two back gallery spaces. With additional works in sculpture and video. (Installation and detail shots below.)

The photographic works in the show are as follows:

• 5 dye sublimation prints on aluminum, latex paint, 2024, sized roughly 74x102x6, 73x70x6, 73x51x6, 49x41x6 inches, in editions of 5

Additional works in other mediums include:

• 1 bronze, 2024, sized 30x13x15 inches, in an edition of 5
• 3 eleven gauge Cor-ten steel, 2024, sized roughly 89x72x8, 84x86x9, 73x32x8 inches, unique
• 1 patinated and polished aluminum, 2024, sized 144x201x148 inches, in an edition of 3
• 4 steel, 2024, sized roughly 15x15x11, 17x10x15, 13x19x3, 9x18x4 inches, unique
• 2 bronze, 2024, sized roughly 20x12x4, 12x12x13 inches, unique
• 1 color video, audio, looped, 2024, 16 minutes 20 seconds, in an edition of 3

Comments/Context: Thinking in three dimensions isn’t something that photographers are asked to do all that often. The eye of the camera readily flattens the three full dimensions of the world around us down to two, so mostly photographers are wrestling with how that translation will actually take place. In this way, photography is generally rooted in the collapsing (or distorting) of spatial dynamics rather than the expanding of them.

The obvious exception to this rule comes when photographs are installed in space, or arranged in ways that amplify their physicality, thereby bringing three dimensionality (and in some cases, sculptural presence) back into the artistic conversation. And it’s altogether clear from Erin Shirreff’s new show that she’s been actively thinking in three dimensions, so much so that photographic vision is just one mode of seeing and artmaking that she’s been exploring in the past few years. In fact, photography plays only a small role in this show, with a number of sculptural works in steel and bronze and one work in video complementing just a handful of works that we might plausibly define as photographic, although they elegantly tussle with dimensionality in their own way. That said, all of the works on view, regardless of their medium, are engaging with a similar set of nested ideas and constraints, layering and translating geometries into more complex constructions.

Photographically, Shirreff’s recent works follow along from her earlier efforts, as seen in her 2021 gallery show (reviewed here), and before that, in her 2018 gallery show (reviewed here). The underlying conceptual formula remains essentially the same: enlarged photographic images (sometimes of sculpture or other artworks, as seen in book plates) mounted on sheets of cut aluminum, the rigid image fragments then layered together within the controlled space of a deep frame, as though leaning together against a wall. Inside this space, she then plays with the interactions of lines, curves, colors, and forms, creating visual links and handoffs between the hard geometric edges of the sheets and the images they support, and using the spatial depths between the sheets to activate that interplay.

At more than eight feet wide, “Paper Sculpture” is the largest photo-based work on view, and its title leans in to the inversion of mediums taking place. The work is made up of cropped photographs of other sculptural objects, all originally executed in something other than paper – wood, stone, ceramic, concrete, plaster, something woven, and even the negative space of a shadow. Shirreff has arranged these pieces into an integrated whole, encouraging the curves, lines, and earth-toned colors of the individual images to connect and echo their neighbors in one lyrical synthesis. The overall effect of this aggregation (now executed in paper) is gracefully energetic, with the two images on the ends providing an inclusive bookending swoop of curvature.

The other photo-based works on view are somewhat smaller, but no less intricately constructed. “Sunset Palace” builds up an angled accumulation of warm toned textures, including wood, brass, and other soft hues, all enlarged to the point that their half tone dots start to appear and disassemble. In another untitled work, a purple sculptural form seems to sit on a white painted deck, or perhaps against a white paneled wall, the geometries cut up and re-assembled in a swirl of motion, with the slats of whiteness in constant rotation. And in third work, hung in the back gallery, a symphony of layered charcoal greys is constructed, with what looks like charred wood, aging concrete, and other less identifiable surfaces chopped into a harmonious gathering of overlapped polygons. Seen as a small group, these recent wall-based photo-works are some of Shirreff’s most compositionally sophisticated and refined, proving strong evidence that as she digs deeper into this approach, the works are becoming increasingly muscular and robust.

The rest of the show, and in fact the majority of what’s on view, explores some of these same aesthetic themes, but in different mediums. A massive aluminum sculpture “Dusk Form” dominates the main gallery space, its triangles feeling like a super-enlarged piece of unfolded origami. Three other works variously titled “Drop” recall an earlier attempt by Shirreff to use the castoffs of her paper cutouts as sculptural ideas in and of themselves; here sheets of black steel lean against the wall, each one a shell of a previous cutout, with each work a layered assemblage of three or four of these sheets stacked together. In the back gallery, a selection of smaller sculptural forms fill a table, each a study in planes, folding, and curvature. And a recent video work (shown in a darkened back room) follows the patient work of a ceramicist, whose hands move up and down a spinning form of clay, slowly transforming it into different shapes.

As an integrated artistic expression, this show feels like a nuanced study of sculptural motifs, and of the processes of arranging forms in space. Each type of work tests a facet of this thinking, probing the core questions from different vantage points. When placed in the context of these various sculptural expressions, Shirreff’s photographic works feel all the more sculptural, the intimate layering of the image planes creating different possibilities for visual friction and engagement. With one medium feeding into another, the show has a kind of understated rhythm, with the photographic works twisting deeper into complexity, allowing serendipitous connections between visual forms to reach for the unexpected.

Collector’s POV: The photographic works in this show range in price from $34000 to $75000, based on size. Shirreff’s work has not yet entered the secondary markets with any regularity, so gallery retail remains the best option form those collectors interested in following up.