Holyoak’s Holocene
Artist Wants You to Think About Extinction
Jim Holyoak is building a visual forest in the York Corridor vitrine of the FOFA gallery at Concordia’s EV building.
The work, Holocene, is an almost 115 sq. metre mixed-media drawing installation and is Holyoak’s thesis exhibition for his MFA in drawing and painting at Concordia.
The giant drawing’s subject matter and style is a hybrid of environments, both in the sense of the landscape itself and in terms of the artist’s cultural inspirations.
Holyoak grew up in a farming community in British Columbia and studied art education at both the University of Victoria and Concordia University. He has apprenticed in China for traditional drawing and traveled and exhibited his work across North America.
“I’m mixing together the stuff I learned in China and the stuff I learned before and since,” he said. “It’s definitely the largest drawing I’ve ever done.”
Holocene refers to our current geologic period and the first large-scale extinction caused by human beings instead of nature.
“I’m trying to take my subject matter as seriously as I can and hopefully get people to start a conversation on extinction because I think it is one of the biggest issues in the world,” said Holyoak.
The month-long project has him behind the glass every day working on the drawing.
Passersby can expect to see Holyoak filling the space with anything from pencil, charcoal, graphite powder, spray paint and ink to painting with a broom or using his own body as a tool to create.
He’ll be prowling up and down the vitrine rocking out to audiobooks. He’s listening to podcasts from Stanford University, Oscar Wilde short stories, Henry David Thoreau and books on extinction and human behaviour.
“It helps me to forget that I’m on display,” he said. “That’s why I have a mask on the back of my head; it’s more for me than for my audience. It’s sort of an odd thing to put myself on display, but I try so hard to forget and really just try to focus on my work.”
He hopes he’s getting a message across. “I don’t want to make propaganda,” he said, “but I’m not trying to avoid being political, so there is political content and I hope it isn’t overlooked.”
Holyoak is also trying to bring conversation into the work itself by collecting postcards and drawings from people about their thoughts, dreams, and feelings about the Earth. There is a drop-off box at the FOFA reception office for anyone that would like to submit something.
The exhibition is scheduled to be complete on Friday, Feb. 11. A finissage will be held that evening at 5 p.m.
“I’m expecting a lot of people to come,” said Holyoak. “The walls should be pretty dense, with probably more sculptural elements.”
Those who come to see the finished drawing can try to find the many creatures living in the giant landscape. Some interesting ones to find will include pterodactyls, a cat growing out of a stump, anthropomorphic trees, a tyrannohorse—half horse, half tyrannosaurus—and, of course, Jim Holyoak.
“They should expect to see me looking exhausted, probably nervous, and hopefully a little bit drunk,” he said. “In a way it’ll be a celebration, although it feels weird to ever celebrate this one. The way I’m drawing is to me quite joyful, but the subject matter isn’t really a party theme. It’s something I take quite seriously.”
Check out Jim Holyoak’s work in progress in Concordia’s EV building by the FOFA Gallery (1515 St. Catherine’s St. W.)
This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 20, published January 25, 2011.
