Art Metropole

#04426

Otherworld Uprising

Artist

Shary Boyle

Date

2008

Publisher

Conundrum Press

Format

Catalogues

Details

Hardcover

ISBN

978-1894994-28-6

Size

23.5 × 32.3 × 1.2 cm

Length

96 

Otherworld Uprising features full colour reproductions of Boyle’s recent series of porcelain figurines, examines the influence of her research into historical porcelain on her drawings, and considers the parallel development of her latest oil portraits. The book also features critical essays by the Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Canada, Josée Drouin-Brisebois, and Sheila Heti, with an introduction by Ben Portis, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Shary Boyle’s work invents a new figurative language that attempts to give fair voice to the experiences of the poorly represented. Her imagery provokes associations with mythology, fairy-tales, and dream worlds. Beyond the boundaries of literal narrative, her work seduces the viewer into considering the uncomfortable.

Boyle’s interest in the craft and skill inherent to historical mediums and a desire to subvert the expectations of those old-fashioned materials led her to the genre of porcelain figurines. Her interest in porcelain sits exactly on the line between revering historical ideals of beauty, delicacy and craft, and confronting those very standards which strive to hide the truth of oppression. Her re-ordering of tradition and craft, whether through sculpture, painting, or drawing gives the viewer a night-time diversion of the subconscious; uncanny and exquisite.