IN PARTNERSHIP WITH FEHELEY FINE ARTS
Pierre-Francois Ouellette art contemporain is pleased to present its newest collaboration with Feheley Fine Arts: the exhibition Universal Cobra: Shuvinai Ashoona & Shary Boyle. Visitors will be able to discover the unique universes of these two great artists and the collaborative drawings made for this exhibition.
Shuvinai Ashoona (b. 1961) began to draw in the early 1990s. Although never formally trained, Ashoona's family and the Kinngait Studios in Cape Dorset have provided her with a creative atmosphere. Her grandmother is the renowned artist Pitseolak Ashoona and her father is sculptor Kiawak Ashoona.
In the past Ashoona's work tended to focus on the Arctic landscape. Today, her work explores a new dynamism through compositions that depict human figures and other creatures with cleverly hidden imagery, and utilizes a wide colour spectrum. The evolution in Ashoona's artistic style points to a highly developed artistic sensibility. Her often unusual and imaginative creatures, animals, and monsters are balanced by a very careful and detailed drawing technique. Her work is comprised of both the elements of her community environment as well as the personal world of her own imagination.
Represented in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Canada, her work has been included in several international exhibitions, such as Basel, Switzerland's 'City Sky' (2008), the Sydney Biennale (2012), and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art's major exhibition "Oh, Canada" (2012). She is a leading contemporary Canadian artist and is in numerous collections of major art institutions, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the BMO Financial Group, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, the MacKenzie Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada, the TD Bank Group, and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
- Russell Bingham, "Shuvinai Ashoona" Historica Canada, December 12, 2013.
Shary Boyle is well-known for her bold and fantastical explorations of the figure. Fuelled by concerns about class and gender injustice, Boyle approaches her work with an expressive candor and compassion; exploring a range of psychological and emotional states through sculpture, drawing, painting, installation and performance. Employing a high-level of handmade craft and detail, her multidisciplinary practice—at once spirited, oneiric and poetic—mines the history of porcelain figurines, animist mythologies and arcane techniques to create a symbolic language uniquely her own.
Boyle exhibits and performs internationally. Her work has been presented by L’Observatoire de l’Espace in Vallauris, France (2012); at Louis Vuitton Maison, Toronto (2012), MASS MoCA, Massachusetts (2012); the BMO Project Room, Toronto (2012); Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2011), Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2011); The Galerie de l’UQAM, Montreal (2010); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2010); Fumetto Festival, Lucerne, Switzerland (2009); the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge (2008), Space Gallery, London UK (2007) and The Power Plant, Toronto (2006). She has performed at the Olympia Theatre, Paris (2005), Sonar Festival, Barcelona (2005), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2006, 2008), Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York (2008), and La Maison Rouge, Paris (2011). In 2012 Boyle presented an original theatre work titled Everything Under the Moon with musical collaborator Christine Fellows at the Enwave Theatre, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto. She is the recipient of the Gershon Iskowitz Prize (2009) and Hnatyshyn Foundation Award (2010). Shary Boyle represented Canada with her project Music for Silence at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. (Source: sharyboyle.com/about.html)
