Fantasia: Barrow, Boyle, Duke & Battersby

Emily Wizard video still

Fantasy and desire infuse the narratives at play in this exhibition with both terror and delight. Featuring drawings, prints, sculptures and video, Fantasia invites the viewer into the personal yet familiar worlds these artists explore. The conflicted, sometimes humourous and often unsettling undercurrents of the inner life are seen in a collision course with the constraints of the social world. The enchanting directness of outsider art and the incisive commentary found in underground comics come to mind. Winnipeg-based artist Daniel Barrow is best known for performances in which he narrates his intricate drawings while manipulating them on an overhead projector to create animated sequences. Toronto's Shary Boyle works in several media using imagery that, like Barrow's, recalls the anxieties, longing and bittersweet fantasy worlds of childhood and adolescence where innocence and disturbance meet. A solo exhibition featuring Boyle's porcelain figure sculptures is also on view at the Power Plant through May 28, 2006. Currently living in Syracuse, NY, Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby perform various roles in their critically acclaimed videos described by Cinema Scope writer Jason MacBride as “some of the most witty, charming and yes, sexy, video art this side of Spike Jonze.”

Artists:
Shary Boyle
Daniel Barrow
Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby