False Flat, Adam Shirley’s first solo gallery exhibit in Detroit, includes Shirley’s latest work, a series of flat steel pieces and sculptures that arose from the artist’s exploration of form and function, in an exercise of going beyond the regular function of creating objects to capture the suggestion of an object, or the expression of an idea.

Primarily known for his work with fine art jewelry, Shirley first began to create steel objects, “just for fun” in the mid 1990’s while working as a tech in the metals shop at College for Creative Studies. Creating steel objects afforded Shirley a freedom he did not find in his jewelry business.

Eager to grow as an artist and further develop his work with steel, Shirley enrolled in the graduate program in Metalsmithing at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Here, Shirley has found a freedom of expression and a supportive environment in which to explore not just steel as a material or medium, but also the concept of space. The objects exhibited in False Flat are characteristic of his work at Cranbrook, in which he has developed a technique that is as much about the process of creation as it is about a final product.

“Instead of physically making or completing a three-dimensional object and that’s what it is, I wanted to create or just explore, and be able to understand three-dimensional form in a different way. As a result, I started making a lot of these flat steel pieces that I would cut up and then re-weld together, but just tack weld them so it’s just temporary. Usually you would tack weld something as a precursor to welding it together. So it’s purposely left in that [temporary] state. Through this technique, I could look at something ….and I could build out from it, so one piece turned into three or four in my mind. It’s kind of this idea of not exactly what something is, but what it could be,” Shirley explains of his process.

A byproduct of Shirley’s skill and experience as a jewelry designer is his appreciation for both the process and the finished product. In his current work, however, Shirley is less concerned with the final outcome and more with the journey of getting there creatively.

“That’s another thing about my process that I think coming from a design world and jewelry world, it’s always about all the steps in the process to get to the finished or over finished piece. In that process there’s something created that speaks to me more than the finished piece. But I would never get there if I [didn’t have] the intent of the finished piece. It’s like a consequential beauty. It wasn’t planned that this is the piece, it’s just a result of the process.”

Working with both two dimensional sketches on paper as well as the three-dimensional steel forms while he concepts his pieces, Shirley indulges his interest in the space and information between a two-dimensional, flat, surface and a three-dimensional object.

“That’s what interests me: the in-between space,” he says. “I think in any of these instances, if you can create that space somehow, it just leaves things wide open.”

While he contends that his intent isn’t for the work to be about nothing, it’s his goal to leave it “so wide open that people can come to it and see different things in it. That’s what excites me. That’s what I love.”

Heavily influenced by living in the Detroit area and being exposed from a young age to the automobile industry, Shirley possesses the rare combination of design skill and expertise in steel, both of which have allowed him to design and create handmade metal objects for years. False Flat affords Shirley not only the opportunity to use the blank slate of the gallery to exhibit the progression of his recent work and to create and environment and context for his pieces, but also to extend his appreciation of steel as a material.

“Growing up here, my whole family is related to the auto industry and manufacturing. Steel as a material is just amazing. I know it’s the information age and information, or the dissemination of it, that’s the power. The metal age is over. But it’s not and it never will be. In my mind, this is the most important material in the world.”

“Basically an artist is trying to share with other people what they see or how they see something. I want people to see the beauty of steel, but almost in a way it’s never been seen either.”

Adam Shirley is the owner and designer at Adam Shirley Jewelry Design in Birmingham, MI. Currently a 2nd year graduate student in the Metalsmithing department at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Shirley is also an alum and faculty member of the College for Creative Studies. He recently participated in a design workshop with Alessi Italian Design.

False Flat opens at Re:View Contemporary on Saturday, February 13, 2010 with an opening reception from 7pm – 11pm.