Shary Boyle: The Monster Under the Bed
Shary Boyle The Clearances 2007 Detail
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Shary Boyle The Clearances 2007 Detail |
The multi-tasking artist Shary Boyle has been celebrated for her drawings, paintings and sculptures, but it is also worth recognizing her revitalization of obsolete overhead projector technology with her whimsical and engrossing live manual animations. It is no wonder, then, that this month at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, the artist’s performative projections from the past decade are the focus of her solo survey exhibition, “The History of Light,” on view until April 27.
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Shary Boyle Skirmish at Bloody Point 2007 Detail |
Fellow artist Emily Vey Duke has described Boyle’s practice as the process of “painting herself a universe…which is ordered according to her own systems of physics, ethics and geography.” This is certainly true of The Clearances, a new mural drawing presented on three overhead projectors that interweaves stories of reclusive sea monkeys, sophisticated sideshow acts and the struggles of indigenous peoples to establish land claims. In Boyle’s delicately layered narratives, real and imagined stories are positioned alongside one another, making no distinction between empirical and mythical truths. The resulting installations resemble a collage from an overactive childhood imagination, maintaining a precarious balance between the seductive fantasies of fairytales and the sinister power of the monster under the bed. (601 3 Ave S, Lethbridge AB)
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Shary Boyle The Clearances 2007 Installation view |
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