Erin Shirreff’s diverse body of work, which includes photography, video, and sculpture, is united by her interest in the ways we experience three-dimensional forms in an age in which our perception is almost invariably mediated by still and moving images. Her work explores the gap between objects and their representations, and the materials (and materiality) of image-making.

Shirreff's Fig. series begins with an assortment of plaster models made in studio, which are then photographed against a seamless backdrop. The scale of the objects remains unclear; they embody a material presence, but evade complete legibility as an object in space. The printed images are then imbued with a sculptural dimension through a meticulously cleaved center seam. “The idea is that they refer to a book spread that has been detached from its signature in the bookbinding process,” Shirreff says. "It’s presenting information that is sort of knowingly incomplete.”

Erin Shirreff (born 1975, British Columbia) lives and works in Montréal. She earned her MFA from Yale University in 2005. Her work was most recently the subject of the major solo exhibition Erin Shirreff: 'Permanent Drafts' at the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin (2025). Other notable exhibitions include Erin Shirreff: 'Folded stone' at SITE Santa Fe in New Mexico (2024); Erin Shirreff: 'Remainders' at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts (2021–22); 'New Work: Erin Shirreff' at SFMOMA (2019); and Erin Shirreff: 'Halves and Wholes' at Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2016).