Shary Boyle

A chilly wind is blowing through the works Canadian artist Shary Boyle made during her residency at EKWC. It’s the threat of speaking freely. The figures in The Silence, a series made of pigmented clay, cover their mouths in gestures of self-censorship. The issue they can’t raise is the suffering of the Palestinian population in Gaza. People have lost friends, jobs, stipends or exhibition opportunities, Boyle says, for speaking out against this war. Mime’s Companion, one of several larger sculptures she made to experiment with glazes, also holds her tongue. A small, mysterious Etruscan figure sits on her shoulder, embodying the unspoken. A second large work, titled Faces, consists of two figures connected by the silent intensity of their gaze. Here too, many things are left unsaid. Meanwhile, the abstract pattern of tree bark provided the design for a mystifying scene on the figure’s back. While in residence, Boyle worked to expand her both her working scale and technical abilities — especially her knowledge of glaze chemistry and firing processes. Boyle constructed her sculptures using hand-building techniques; she experimented with pigmenting clay and with combining clay bodies (stoneware and porcelain) post-firing. She worked with an array of glazes, paying close attention to their colour and texture combinations in relation to each of her respective sculptures.