Shary Boyle's installation 'The Clearances' inhabited one of the innermost spaces of the Illingworth Kerr gallery from June to September. Upon one wall, a mural-size drawing revealed a serpentine length of figures layered with several errant cut-out militants and delicate creatures, the mass-pilgrimage of which seemed to be both spewing out of and returning towards a large pink and white conch shell. A second installation called 'Skirmish at Bloody Point' claimed the opposite wall, wherein a drawing of a lonely march of soldiers and the mid-air descent of two Inuit hunters became a moon-lit leap from the edge of an arctic cliff.

By use of a timer to control lighting, the installation space became as dark as a theater. Overhead projectors pinned the drawings to the wall with jewels of light and colour from additional drawings on acetate, suspending figures within ghostly haloes surrounded by midnight groves and the veined ground of root-like shapes.

When spot-lit by projections, Boyle's figures became engulfed in an inwardness which accentuated the ornate beauty of their shocked expressions. Their bird-like features and pained bodies slumped like deflated balloons or tread in stiff, puppet-like incredulity in the fragile countenance of their papery origins.

The installation resembled writer Marina Warner's description of the language of imagination as embodied in proto-cinematic devices and words like "spirit" and "ether", wherein "residues from different eras have adhered to form a sticky, bristling deposit." In a recent artist talk in Vancouver, Boyle described the idea for the installation as formed through her visits to museums in London, activating thoughts of "the history of the world" and its collected narratives within the culture of the colonies. In 'The Clearances', Boyle described stories and myths displayed through a march wherein "on the right hand side are all the powers of force. On the left hand side are all the people and ways of thought that have now been removed from the world".

During the last week of the exhibition, Boyle and musician Doug Paisley performed 'Dark Hand and Lamp Light' in an empty room of the Illingworth Kerr gallery. Boyle composed live drawings, projections, and animations accompanied by Paisley's singing and guitar. Using an overhead projector, acetate drawings, ink, and sand, Boyle invented scenes of isolated figures infected with bright, bloodied colour, while she continually pulled away outer projections to reveal yet more underneath. In the visual language of Victorian silhouettes, silent film, and optical illusions in the spirit of the magic lantern, wings fluttered, figures walked, long fingers caressed, and landscapes rolled by as if on ancient rotating devices.

Paisley's lyrics were heavy with an old language half steeped in the sparse sentiments of old Westerns and Depression-era ballads, and his singing evoked a sense of the leaden experience of remembering. Boyle's projections operated as suggestions of story-environments for the songs, and the two elements together were incredibly eerie and filled with sadness. In a song titled 'Two Like Us', Paisley sang "all it takes is time to make a life like mine", and the overlay of song and projection was suggestive of corruption, guilt, and the burden of consequences in the present.

The ability for Boyle's drawings to move and breathe was extraordinary within mere glimpses and suggestions of movement. She pulled a glove from a lanky hand, both made of acetate but suggesting living flesh. She transformed a child into a wolf-man, a leopard, a vampire in Eddie Munster green tinge, an old man, a woman in full make-up, a tattooed man, a skull, and a face full of bruises. As the child rematerialized, he slowly moved his eyes over the audience in a suggestion that we acknowledge him as a live presence after watching his changeable states with such ease. Using a mirror, Boyle was able to move projections across the dark room as if they were ghosts. This evening, a startled mermaid served as banshee, materializing upon Paisley, whom Boyle covered at one point with a white sheet as an extension of the screen.

While Boyle's projections can appear in the vulnerable slapstick of cut-out animation techniques, they are most often distant and inscrutable in their silence. As images which both amused and electrified, Boyle's drawings added a solemn feyness to Paisley's gentle ballads, creating intimate screens for the projection of narratives with both startling beauty and pain.