Shary Boyle, a Toronto-based artist, began in the late ’90s with sculptural work. Initially, she used a modelling compound for her figures that can be hardened in a regular oven. Inspired by a combination of mythology and current events, her figures are fantastic, fragile interpretations of the world. She uses the fantastic as a form of escaping from the banal and depressing elements of our daily existence, which, according to her, was how the whole theme of her work began. Almost ten years later, the artist continues to working with porcelain, having become an expert on the techniques of its production, as well as its history. Contrary to the modelling compound she used for her early work, porcelain is a medium rich in history. She therefore no longer creates these figures only from the material. They are part of a tradition which began in Europe in Meissen, and whose symbolically strong references the artist uses.