Grrrl is shaking up conventions

By Kate MacLean

What makes art, well, art? A couple months ago, I was talking to Mark Douglas Trask of Opera Lyra, and I asked him about the state of the arts in Canada.

“Which arts? Architecture, theatre, painting?” he asked.

Hmm, I thought. Which arts indeed.

I had fallen into the trap of using a catch-all phrase to encompass an idea that is much more complex than my question allowed.

Fortunately, I did mean all of the above, and more.

In my world, art is defined as any creative expression that can bring you to a different emotional state: Joy, sadness, relief, anger, despair, disbelief.

My most recent experience of this was the opening of a SAW Gallery exhibit called Nasty Grrrls. Count ‘em, three R’s.

Toronto’s Shary Boyle was one of four artists involved in the show, and she completely shook up my conception of art.

When I first saw her work from across the room, I thought it looked too simple to be featured at an opening.

Her exhibit consisted of sketches on 8.5 x 11 looseleaf paper just stuck to the wall. No framing, nothing fancy, just stuck to the wall. I was almost embarrassed at the lack of effort.

From afar, these sketches looked deceptively simple. When I looked closer., I realized that simplicity is their strength.

The thematic complexity of her work shines through because of the straightforward medium she uses.

One piece depicts a mother leaning over her son as he eats link after link of sausage. Your eyes follow to where the sausage is coming from, and you realize that it emerges from a hole in her abdomen like an umbilical cord. She looks drained and unhappy, but has a sort of haunting smile on her lips. Her son is oblivious to her pain and sports a wide grin as he spears his sausage.

Another shows a father and his two children having dinner at the kitchen table. Everyone is drawn in dark lines except the mother who is drawn as lightly as the cabinets and fades into the background of the drawing. Knives are circling above the table like sharks.

Through her art, Boyle examines events that obviously helped to shape her consciousness througout childhood.

Her skill at evoking some of the darker themes in human experience challenges you to remember and face your own experiences.

So, kids, the moral of the story is, don’t judge art by its outer layers.