Jim Holyoak
sickrad@gmail.com
ÒFantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters. Fantasy united with reason is the mother of the arts, and a source of wonders.Ó
- Francisco Goya
In my drawings I have been trying to explore and describe the limbos between fantasy, perception, dreams, memory, and imagination. I have steadily created and collected a mountain of paper - garbage and photocopies, drawings of distorted people, places and animals, real and imaginary, covered in stains, wrinkles and writing. The resultant books and installations are created though a combination of careful editing and intuitive connections. These pages, intimate and overwhelmingly physical, range in scale from business cards to murals. They are both individual pieces unto themselves and material for artist books, zines, and dense installation environments.
My approach is a blend of intention and chance that employs life drawing, drawing from found sources, as well as imagination and memory. I vary my techniques frequently while maintaining monochromatic constraints.
There is no clear seam where the creative process begins or ends. Though the content of my art varies enormously, much of it has been a depiction of my romance with the temperate British Columbian rainforests I grew up around - dense, green, and crawling with banana slugs. I love dinosaurs because they are completely real and imaginary - they are monsters for real . I make a defense of suspended disbelief, playfulness, and unleashed, raw imagination.
Other themes in my work emerge from the blending of politics with the hyper-personal. My writing (often incorporated with the drawing) is particularly rife with sexual awkwardness, spiritual uncertainty, and an attention to human relationships with environments and Mother Nature.
I am particularly interested in farm animals, extinct animals, endangered animals, primates, insects, amphibians, and bizarre animals. My work draws parallels between species, and questions the value of our supposed differences. I want to inspire a discomfort with anthropocentric views of Ôgod-given' superiority, and encourage viewers to imagine the inevitably lonesome future that awaits our species with if we carry on with fundamentalism, war, and ecocide.
- Jim Holyoak
Education
2007
Apprentice of master ink painter Shen Ling Xiang, Yangshuo, China
2004
Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors, University of Victoria, BC
Solo Exhibitions
2007
Nothing is Wasted But the Whale Itself, Truxtop Gallery, Silverlake, CA
2006
Seasons in the Sun (Fall) , New General Catalog, Brooklyn, NY
Look Not Long Into the Flames , CafŽ X, Montreal, QC
Ballad of the Airy Ghost Boat Chamber , Pterodactyl Studio & Gallery, Salt Spring Island, BC
Aquarium of Night , The Hatch Gallery, Pasadena, CA
2004
Monsters! Monsters! Monsters! Legends Comic Shop, Victoria, BC
2003
October Blizzard , The Fifty-Fifty Arts Collective, Victoria, BC
Eleven Love Letters Zine Launch , The Fifty-Fifty Arts Collective, Victoria, BC
Please Touch , Logan's Tavern, Victoria, BC
Collaborative and Group Exhibitions
2005-2008 contributor to monthly group shows, The Hive Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2007
Animalesque , Art Murmur, Los Angeles, CA
Pop Montreal, projectionist for the band, Ôhi,lonely oak,' Montreal, QC
Fickle Hearts Grow Greener , Lower East Side Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Art Maze , Osheaga Music Festival, Montreal, QC
Avatars of Beauty, Deluge Contemporary Art, Victoria, BC
Don't Worry It's Just the Lord, Friendship Cove, Montreal, QC
Ladyhawk, My Hero Gallery, Montreal, QC
Villa Villa Nola Open Studio, Villa Villa Nola, Montreal, QC
Micro Gestalt , 207 Gallery, Manhattan, NY
Micro Gestalt , Orphanage Gallery, Silver Lake, CA Get: Art , Bonhams & Butterfields, Hollywood, CA Postcard Show , Red Bird Studios, Montreal, QC
2006
Expozine Fair , Montreal, QC
Broken Arm, Long Shadow , Kristi Engle Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Duotone Arts Festival , Kelowna, BC
Ergot Eryops , The Fifty-Fifty Arts Collective, Victoria, BC
Stop Biting On My Chill , Barb's Buns, Salt Spring Island, BC
Post-card Correspondence Art, Pterodactyl Studio & Gallery, Salt Spring Island, BC
Likeness , The Fifty-Fifty Arts Collective, BC
Let's Travel, fashion show, Ivar, Hollywood, CA
Group Show , James Gray Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Miniature Show , Jason Downey Gallery, Montreal, QC
The Max: Live Painting Show , Hangar 1018, Los Angeles, CA
2005
Twisted Christmas , James Gray Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Bi-Annual Brewery Art Walk , The Brewery, Los Angeles, CA
All Hallow's Eve , Hangar 1018, Los Angeles, CA
Hurricane Katrina Relief Benefit , M.J. Higgins Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
The Max , Hangar 1018, Los Angeles, CA
1 st Annual L.A. Arts Festival , Los Angeles, CA
Primordial Stew , The Lift, Montreal, QC
2004
Expozine Fair , Montreal, QC
The Utopic Dream of the Sun in a Box , The Lift, Montreal, QC
The Utopic Dream of the Sun in a Box , The Down, Victoria, BC
Banished Forever: UVic Grad Show , U. of Victoria, Victoria, BC
Everybody Get Down , The Down, Victoria, BC
This Side of West (book launch), Lucky Bar, Victoria, BC
(self) Publish or Perish , Open Space, Victoria, BC
The Fourth & Final Digital Video Hit Top 40 Secret Underground Techno Zombie Dance Party 5000 , The Down, Victoria, BC
Drawing and Zine Exhibition , The Second Story Book Shop, Victoria, BC
2003
Animalism , The Ministry of Casual Living, Victoria, BC
The Triad Show , The Down, Victoria, BC
2002
RPM: The Lost Art of Album Covers , Rogue Art, Victoria, BC
The Nocturne Show , The Brown House, Victoria, BC
With My First Military Pay Cheque I'm Gonna Buy an X-box , The Brown House, Victoria, BC
Drawings , Ocean Island Backpackers Inn, Victoria, BC
2001
Drawings: Jim Holyoak and Sheryl Jones , The Joint Pizzeria, Victoria, BC
Publications
2006-2008 annual contributor to the 2$ Mix Tape zine, Montreal, QC
2007
Stone Three: Songs for the Seven Eyed Goat, album art, Nottingham, UK
Story Board Label, poster art, Montreal, QC
2006
hi, lonely oak: All These Mountains Look the Same , album art, Montreal, QC Keith Holyoak: Decent , album art, Los Angeles, CA
Look-Look Magazine, collage pieces from teenage treasure boxes, Los Angeles, CA
No Good Day to Die: Long War , album art, Aldergrove, BC
2004
Mammal: Live in the Dungeon / Live in Tokyo , guitar player & album art, Victoria BC
The Essence magazine, April cover art, Victoria, BC
This Side of West Journal of Art and Literature , Victoria, BC
2003
monsters for real: eleven love letters , 260 page self-published series of eleven zines Human Milk for Human Babies , edited by Jim Holyoak and Matt Shane, Victoria, BC
This Side of West Journal of Art and Literature , Victoria, BC
Mind Add U. of Victoria Visual Arts zine, Victoria, BC
2002
The Guy , 58 page self-published zine, Victoria, BC
Mind Add , published by U. of Victoria Visual Arts, Victoria, BC
2001
monsters for real zine, issues 1 and 2, self-published zine, BC
Mind Add , published by U. of Victoria Visual Arts, Victoria, BC
Sound Stories , spoken word recording, Victoria, BC
1999 September, album art, Vancouver, BC
1998 Manner Farm , album art, Vancouver, BC
1998 Antithesis Magazine, SFPIRG, Vancouver, BC
Awards
2007
Visual Arts Development Award, administered by the Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery
2006
Shortlist for the ÔBest English Book' category at the Montreal Expozine
Work Experience
2007 & 2008
Art installer and assistant at the Joyce Yahouda Gallery, in the Belgo Building, Montreal
2006 Art installer and assistant at the James Gray Gallery, at Bergamont Station, Santa Monica
2006 Co-founder of Pterodactyl Studio, and member of the Salt Spring Island Studio Tour
2004 Co-founder of The Lift gallery in St. Henri, Montreal
2003 & 2004 Facilitator for weekly 3-hour life drawing sessions at UVic
2003 Art vendor at the Bastion Square Festival of the Arts in Victoria
Reviews
2006
Thuy-Anh Vu, Christine, ÒAquarium of Night,Ó AArt Magazine
2004
Gagnon, Audrey, Òmonsters for real: eleven love letters,Ó zine of the month, Broken Pencil Magazine
2003
Bake-Paterson, Zoe, ÒDreams, Dinosaurs and Veganism,Ó The Martlet