Shary Boyle, The Clearances (detail), 2007
THE HISTORY OF LIGHT | SHARY BOYLE
03.08.2008 | 04.20.2008
Although Shary Boyle's practice is based in painting and drawing, her work is resistant to easy categorization. Her production reaches out to the world at large and in doing so, invents a new figurative language that attempts to give voice to the experiences of the falsely or poorly represented. Her subjects include children, animals, women, the spiritual and otherworldly. The emotions of grief, anger, mischief, loneliness and desire are central to her characters. Her work exhibits longing for an unknown better world, a confrontation of injustice, and an imperative to illustrate female desire from a female perspective. Boyle employs a language that is accessible to everyone. Her imagery evokes associations with mythology, fairy-tales, and dream worlds. The artist is not interested in literal narratives or direct illustration, but instead intends for the work to be uncomfortable in a seductive way. These contradictions are central to her practice as an artist.
Boyle’s interest in the craft and skill inherent to historical mediums and experiments to subvert the expectations of those old-fashioned materials and subjects led her to the genre of porcelain figurines. Her figures are comprised of separate molds for their torsos, limbs and heads and stand approximately ten inches tall. The parts are first assembled, then costumed by the intricate historical technique called “lace-draping” and finally china painted. Lace draping rapidly caught on as a specialist hobby with doll lovers across America. Once introduced in the 50s, this decorative genre inspired many women to focus with complete dedication to refining the technique. Since 2003 Boyle has been working with women like these in their home studios, using their dated figure molds and adapting their techniques in a social setting. This almost performative experience of creating relationships with elderly strangers, while introducing and exchanging creative ideas is at one with Boyle’s practice.
Fellow artist Emily Vey Duke comments: Shary Boyle’s vision of her practice is religious and magical. It is paramount that the work remain unsullied, in the realm of truth and purity. This vision allows the possibility of a world in which one can simply make one’s work for purposes beyond career. She talks about drawing and painting herself a universe in which she could happily live, one which is ordered according to her own systems of physics, ethics, and geography.
Shary Boyle’s exhibition at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery will explore the performative aspect of her practice and showcase her overhead projection works of the past ten years including The Clearances, 2007 which features a fourteen foot mural drawing. A graduate of the Ontario College of Art, Boyle’s work is represented in Toronto by Jessica Bradley Art + Projects
