Shelf Life

About

Shelf Life presents photographic works by Oakland-based multidisciplinary artist James Shefik, made from small, temporary sculptures constructed with everyday materials, food, and remnants from his studio practice.

Many of the sculptures exist only long enough to be photographed. Through light, cropping, perspective, and scale, the camera transforms them into something less certain. Objects only a few inches tall can appear monumental, architectural, humorous, or unsettling.

The photographs do more than document the sculptures. They become the final form of the work, separating the objects from their original scale and allowing familiar materials to become strange again.

About the Artist

James Shefik is an Oakland-based conceptual and multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans sculpture, photography, installation, and mixed media. Primarily working from sculpture, he uses familiar materials and objects to examine social and political absurdities, systems of power, and the instability of meaning.

Alongside his studio practice, Shefik has worked for many years as a scenic artist and scenic foreman for film and television, an experience that informs his attention to fabrication, illusion, scale, and the construction of visual environments.