Family Works: A Multiplicity of Meanings and Contexts | http://www.concordia.ca/familyworks

Shary Boyle, The Lute Player, 2010, glazed porcelain, lustre, glass beads, 1/2, 24.5 cm (h.), 23 cm (diam.),

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Toronto-based artist Shary Boyle (b. 1972) has spent the last decade working in porcelain as a

complement to her well-developed drawing practice. The Lute Player (2010) is an example of

her more recent interest in creating her own porcelain moulds, as opposed to her adaptation of

rare pre-existing moulds in previous projects. This sculpture portrays an adolescent female

Family Works: A Multiplicity of Meanings and Contexts | http://www.concordia.ca/familyworks

playing an electric guitar, which departs from the traditional natural setting of porcelain

figurines. In this work, Boyle pays homage to the female folk musicians who have inspired her,

although the stylization of the figure's hair is also redolent of headbangers and hyper-masculine

metal culture. The sculpture’s references extend further into the past: its title recalls the

numerous portraits of women playing flutes that were produced from the Renaissance to the

Victorian era. If not explicitly allegorical, these depictions were endowed with sexual

connotations, as talent with the lute was equated with sexual skill. The Lute Player investigates

the traversing of gender lines as well as the crossing of boundaries of sexual acceptability within

adolescence.

Sarah Riley Mathewson