Jim Shirey grew up near Gary, Indiana, and worked in the steel mills in the early 60s, where he met his future wife, Sandy. After receiving a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Purdue University in 1969, he moved with his family to Athens, Ohio, where he taught as a professor of Mathematics until his retirement. His career as a photographer began shortly thereafter. Jim specializes in wildflowers, ice and clouds, and has exhibited his work in Ohio, Colorado and Georgia. He and Sandy live adjacent to a wildlife area near Athens.
Familiarity and overuse taints our artistic relationship with natural images. We use them as icons for human relationships. We see them as elements of graphic design or relics of Romanticism, never looking beyond superficial characteristics. My work invites a viewer through this veil by depicting natural objects as centers of power lying just beyond the physical limits of vision.
Juried Group Exhibitions
Griffon Gallery, Nelsonville OH, 2006
Alpha-Omega Gallery, Columbus OH, 2007
Columbus Metro Library Juried Show, Columbus OH, 2007
Ohio Art League Spring Exhibition, Columbus OH, 2007
Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition, Columbus OH, 2007
Zanesville Art Center Summer Exhibition, Zanesville OH, 2007
Columbus Metro Library Juried Show, Columbus OH, 2008
Center for Fine Arts Photography Macro World, Fort Collins CO, 2008
Alpha-Omega Gallery, Columbus OH, 2008
Majestic Galleries, Nelsonville OH 2008
Rome Art Coterie, Rome GA, 2009
Firelands Association for Visual Arts, Oberlin OH, 2009
Gadsden Art Museum, Gadsden AL, 2009, First Photography
Southern Hills Art, Jackson, OH, 2009, First Photography
Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis IN, 2010
Individual Exhibitions
Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Mount Vernon, OH, 2010 (with ceramist, Paul Linhares)
Kalmanson Gallery, Swainsboro GA January, 2010