After her opening statement and cheers from the crowd, guests went through a velvet curtain, through a door and out onto the runway-like platform into the room that holds the special exhibition. The only text present on the walls of the exhibition are the ones that greet you at the beginning, in which Boyle invites you “to assume the role of performer—as yourself.” Her art “asks us to both honour and challenge those parts of ourselves and each other that we present to the world, and those we keep hidden within.”
What awaits you inside is a carnival of human figures, made in porcelain, stoneware, and terracotta, with glazes and enamels, accessories of metal, textiles, gold leaf, and the odd motor breathing life into what you could call the “cast” of Boyle's exhibition.
In The Painter, a faceless woman gazes into a round mirror, looking at the face she drew onto the mirror in makeup. It appears that she is preparing herself for a show; on the stage, or simply around scrutinizing peers, friends, or family.
On the left wall is White Elephant, a nine foot tall sculpture of a drastically elongated, seated woman, in bright white and off-white tones. Black eyebrows, eyes, lips, buttons, and the dark soles of her brogues mark out her expression and outline. Her physical proportions recall the transformations of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but are also reminiscent of distortions and inequality with regard to people's skin colour. Between the full rotation of the woman's head that viewers witness at unpredictable times, and the dark, concentric Looney Tunes circles that radiate outward behind the woman, we observe a woman who is fraying.
In the third segment of the room, “The Star”, one finds Centering, a coin-operated pottery wheel that spins five spheres on a post, twirling fabric that's attached to it. The spheres look like planets in an astronomical model. Except, this is not a display of heliocentrism, but rather, anthropocentrism. Boyle suggests, “we are all at the centre of the universe.”
Elsewhere on the walls are thematically-tied drawings and paintings and a miniature, sculpted parade of characters that includes praying hands, drummers, flag bearers, and a mermaid advocating for the urgent causes of the world.
As this all unveiled itself and each viewer formed their own impression of the rich symbolism of the artworks, four musicians came into the room, sat down by the runway, and began to play a song on 13 ceramic bowls and four ocarinas. Boyle's work is a cause for reflection among all those who encounter it.
For that reason, and for the way they both construct worlds with ceramics, Estonian artist Kris Lemsalu Malone is another artist that comes to mind when seeing this local exhibition.
Lemsalu Malone's art is identified by how she deliberately misplaces the silhouettes of people and animals within inanimate objects. In Wisdom and Eggs, four grimacing ceramic heads, shaped like those of birds, are propped up inside reflective yellow jackets, with turtleneck sweaters underneath. They are sitting expectantly in a row on a long, inflatable red boat, as though they are waiting for rescue.
In Master of Silence, a heap of colourful fabrics is assembled in a seated position, with a hat, slithery green hands held together, and a face that watches with eight open eyes. The figure is deeply focused on some higher purpose.
Then, in So Let Us Melt And Make No Noise, a hooded figure sits on the bow of a boat, likely capsizing, as indicated by the bubbling of water underneath (a cluster of blue balloons). The figure is nonchalant, playing on a mini keyboard as the boat is pointing vertically out of the water. Lemsalu Malone may joke with us through her art, but these are cathartic jokes.
Meanwhile, the nucleus of Shary Boyle's art is the shaping of one's identity; a paralyzing awareness of everyone else's perception of who you are; and if you're to think contemporarily, the ongoing song and dance of social media and the internet.
Boyle represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 2013, and Lemsalu Malone represented Estonia there in 2019, confirming how ceramicists are truly reflecting the zeitgeist. They've both cultivated a style that rearranges human figures based on troubling stimuli, showing our inner thoughts physically changing us.
And looking at these manifestations of problems in a room with so many other people makes it less gloomy. We're allowed to have struggles, and we don't have to face them alone.
Written by Vincent Teetsov, Toronto
See Outside the Palace of Me until May 15th, 2022 at the Gardiner Museum (111 Queen's Park, Toronto, ON M5S 2C7). Museum entry is free every Wednesday night from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM. At other times, for adults, admission is $15, for seniors it's $11, and admission is free for students and children.
