James Shefik

Instagram: @James_shefik_sculpture

Website: https://jamesshefik.com

Bio: Conceptual, multidisciplinary artist James Shefik lives in Oakland. Along with making art in his studio, he is a scenic artist and scenic foreman on movie and television sets (Sense8, Thirteen Reasons Why, Steve Jobs, Big Eyes, Milk, and The Matrix to name a few). Primarily a sculptor, Shefik creates artwork that reveals his strong concern for the environment, for the government’s tyranny of purposeful invasion of our privacy, and social political absurdity that often accompanies concentrations of power. His hummingbird installation “I’ve Not Had Enough of You” was created in 2013. It referenced a military project of surveillance conceived of during the Iraqi war in 2006. Flying hummingbirds were equipped with cameras in the era before smartphones for surveillance. I created 99 hummingbird drones, one of which transmits a delayed video signal to a monitor in the installation space.

Statement: I am naturally a sensitive, curious, pessimist. Human behavior fascinates me, and while we have many positive traits, my work tends to highlight our shortcomings, with a predominant focus on concentrations of power and absurdity. The resulting pieces tend to blur the lines between contemporary art, beauty and the political use of power, to fabricate new ways to see the world around us. I do this with common everyday objects (cars, matches, hummingbirds, chairs) , in varying dimensions, media and numbers. The object's finish is kept minimal, realistic yet obsessively detailed to hold a viewers interest and attention long enough to see multiple layers of meaning. Another aspect of the laborious quality of each piece is a rebuttal to the digital instant gratification, short attention span landscape that pervades the early 21st century.