SHARY BOYLE

....

Shary Boyle was born in Scarborough, ON in 1972. Her multidisciplinary practice continues the human tradition of personal, social and political reflection centering the figure, rooted firmly in the personal and handmade. Envisioning deeply imaginative, idiosyncratic, and unsettling worlds, Boyle is an early innovator of live animation with overhead projectors and decorative ceramics in the contemporary art discourse. Boyle activates her practise 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. She is an A.I. objector, and centres the ethos of peer equality, crediting, and paying those she works with.

Shary Boyle represented Canada with her project Music for Silence at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, and her work has been featured at the 2017 Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale in South Korea and the 2021 Kaunas Biennial in Lithuania. Boyle is the recipient of Canada’s Hnatyshyn Foundation Award, the Gershon Iskowitz Prize, and holds a 2021 Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the Ontario College of Art and Design University. Boyle’s solo exhibition Outside the Palace of Me was organized by Toronto’s Gardiner Museum and toured seven North American museums, including the Vancouver Art Gallery (2023) and the Museum of Art and Design in NYC (2023/24). A survey of 25 years of her socio-political projects, How We Are, was presented in spring 2026 by the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Shary Boyle currently lives and works in Toronto and Tantramar, New Brunswick.