SHARY BOYLE

Artist imagines bold new worlds

Shary Boyle, The Silences, 2024. Series of pigmented, press-molded stoneware, with glazes and inset Limoges porcelain eyes. Courtesy the artist and EKWC (European Ceramic Work Centre). ©Shary Boyle. Photo: Rene van der Hulst, 2024.

Shary Boyle is one of Canada’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, known for her bold, highly crafted and deeply imaginative explorations of the figure. The OCAD University graduate works across painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, installation, live performance and public art, creating intricate worlds that challenge conventional ideas about history, identity and human relationships.

In her practice, she considers the social history of ceramic figurines, animist mythologies and folk art forms to create a symbolic, feminist and politically charged language that is uniquely her own. Boyle activates her practice through collaboration and community, with a spirit of curiosity, inclusivity and bridge-building. 

Her collaborative outreach has included musicians, artists, hobbyists, ASL performers and translators, tradespeople, mechatronic designers, writers, circus and theme park entertainment creators, dancers, mimes, puppeteers, costume designers, acrylic nail artists, community folk artists, and jewelry smiths.1

Shary Boyle, Cephalophoric Saint, 2018, colour lithograph with opalescent pigment, 65.72 x 50.48 cm, collaborating printer Jill Graham.
Shary Boyle, Cephalophoric Saint, 2018, colour lithograph with opalescent pigment, 65.72 x 50.48 cm, collaborating printer Jill Graham.

The recipient of the $25,000 Gershon Iskowitz Prize in 2009 from the Art Gallery of Ontario for her contribution to visual arts in Canada, Boyle’s multidisciplinary artworks were the subject of the major touring exhibition, Shary Boyle: Flesh and Blood in 2010–2011. She represented Canada at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 with Music for Silence, a collaborative installation created with the musician Christine Fellows and the composer Sandro Perri.

She also co-curated the collaborative touring project Earthlings in 2017. Her work was featured at the 2017 Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale in South Korea and the 2021 Kaunas Biennial in Lithuania. In 2021, she received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from OCAD U.

Learn more about Shary Boyle

1Patel Brown website, Shary Boyle

Image credit: Shary Boyle, The Silences, 2024. Series of pigmented, press-molded stoneware, with glazes and inset Limoges porcelain eyes. Courtesy the artist and EKWC (European Ceramic Work Centre). ©Shary Boyle. Photo: Rene van der Hulst, 2024.