From The History of Light
Shary Boyle mystifies with light and shadow
My first glimpse into the fantastical and mischievous world of Toronto-based artist Shary Boyle was in 2006 at an artist-run centre in Ottawa. It was a group show of drawings and the strangeness of Boyle’s delicate watercolours of lush candy-coloured forests populated with mutant prepubescent girls was hard to ignore. Her imagery was at once troublesome and comical her brushstrokes precise yet organic. As cunning and memorable as they were I later discovered that these drawings were but a small part of Boyle’s increasingly multidisciplinary practice.
Boyle’s body of work can be loosely divided into two broad categories: ephemeral live drawing performances either solo or in collaboration with a musician and works that are typically shown in a gallery setting. The two primary artistic tools used in her performances are the obsolete overhead projector and the acetates that become her canvases. Often accompanying music and lyrics Boyle will project her live drawings on a wall or will animate an existing drawing by moving it around the lighted screen or by overlapping it with other acetates. Her gallery pieces are much more conventional running the gamut of traditional mediums such as sculptures on pedestal paintings and drawings.
Her latest endeavour a solo exhibition titled The History of Light (currently on view at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge) is the concrete manifestation of her longing to combine and blur the boundaries between her two practices. The exhibition chiefly installed by Boyle herself includes videos of her past performances costumes that she has created and worn poster ephemera a display of acetates from previous performances nine drawings on acetates that were inspired by her performances and three drawing installations that also utilize projectors.
Centrally located on the floor of the gallery space are three modest TV monitors on crates where visitors can watch a selection of Boyle’s performances from the past decade. By far the most engaging performance of the group is the collaboration with Peaches in 2001. Canadian Merrill Nisker (Peaches) stands alone on the stage in front of a white background while Boyle animates her surroundings turning her lurid lyrics and catchy beats into visual jabs and jests. For her “rock star” song Boyle directly projects onto the singer a drawn guitar for her to strum then flanks her with throngs of wild cartoon fans and as the song reaches its climax funnily makes their disembodied arms pump the air by moving the acetates up and down on the projector’s screen.
Facing the monitors and sharing the far wall of the gallery space are the drawing installations The Clearances and Skirmish at Bloody Point both created in 2007. These two large and colourful works illustrate stories and legends from the artist’s personal life or from her favourite books. As in her performances Boyle achieves refreshing and powerful visual stimulus through simple crafty measures and with the use of her favourite instrument the overhead projector.
In the large drawing collage The Clearances no less than six stories have been intertwined to create a mismatch of characters such as medieval knights aboriginal warriors and Sea Monkeys that are collectively making their way towards the entrance of a giant conch shell. In addition to these layers of visual information two projectors set on a timer and loaded with cut-up collaged and coloured acetates periodically add another coat of stimulation to the piece. With a clicking sound the lights dim and bright colours surround the people populating this strange world their bodies popping thanks to a bare light cut out to frame their silhouettes. Although the stories that inspire Boyle’s work can be baffling — like a girl rolling in the hay with a scarecrow or a woman dying in the forest with IVs running from her hand to branches of a willow — the childlike simplicity and beauty of her imagery makes it possible for viewers of all backgrounds to appreciate and explore its visual language.
Boyle says that although there are many layers to her work it’s important that the language she uses remains simple. “I feel like we’re at a place in contemporary art where the more mystifying complicated and confusing the language of an artwork is the more important and powerful people feel it must be” she says. “I disagree with that. I feel like we’re really losing the thread of purpose for expression and communication in art. Art is supposed to be a tool to help people make sense and understand the world around them.”
