Shary Boyle

Background

Boyle was born in Scarborough, Ontario, the youngest of five children. Her father worked repairing screen and glass doors.

Education

She attended high school at Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts, then went on to post-secondary studies at the Ontario College of Art, graduating in 1994.

Career

She lives in Toronto. Shary Boyle works in many media, including drawing, painting, sculpture, and performance art Her work tends to explore themes of gender and class, evoking and exploring emotional states through exquisite craftsmanship.

She is particularly known for her explorations of the figure through porcelain figurines.

Boyle has performed at a number of venues including VonRot GmbH, Berlin (2001), the All Tomorrow"s Parties festival, Los Angeles (2002), the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2004, 2006), the Olympia Theatre, Paris (2005), the Fonal Festival, Finland (2005), the Sonar Festival, Barcelona (2005), and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2006, 2008). In addition, her work has been exhibited widely since 2000.

In 2006, her work, Untitled 2004, was featured in a solo exhibition at the Power Plant in Toronto. Two years later, the Southern Alberta Art Gallery showcased her work in an exhibition, and in 2010, Boyle"s solo exhibition Flesh and Blood opened at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

This exhibition was a joint venture between the AGO, Galerie de l’UQAM and the Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery.

lieutenant was curated by Louise Dérailway Boyle represented Canada at the 2013 Venice Biennale with her project Music for Silence. In 2014, Boyle was lead faculty on The Universe and Other Systems residency at The Banff Centre.

In addition to her sculptural and performance work, Boyle also collaborates with musicians, creating "live" drawings, which are animated and projected onstage during their performances.

In 2006, Boyle collaborated with Doug Paisley in forming Dark Hand and Lamplight, an opening act for Will Oldham"s California tour. She has also worked with Feist, Peaches, and Christine Fellows.

In 2012, she collaborated with the latter to present an original theater piece, Everything Under the Moon at the Enwave Theatre in Toronto. In 2014, Boyle and Fellows collaborated on a new live story telling performance called Spell to Bring Lost Creature Home.

The performance explores themes of alienation, mortality, and finding ones voice.

Boyle"s work is included in many public and private collections, including Collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Collections of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Giverny Capital Collection, Collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Collection of the Musee d"art contemporain de Montreal, The Bailey Collection, Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, and Collection of Louisiana Maison Rouge.

Achievements

• Boyle has won a number of awards, receiving the Canada Council for the Arts International Studio Program residency at Space in London, United Kingdom, in 2007, and the 2009 Gershon Iskowitz Prize. She received the K. M. Hunter Artist Award in 2000, the Chalmers Foundation Award in 2004, was a finalist for the Sobey Art Award in 2007 and 2009, and in 2010, she won the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award.