Book of Nineteen Nocturnes presented a hand-drawn and crafted artists’ book of the same name, 17 years in the making, 500 pages long. Each of the 19 chapters are hand-bound into individual accordion books, containing graphite drawings, watercolours, ink-paintings, ink-jet prints and collaged text. Both the text and images were developed while traveling (often trekking) throughout Nordic Europe, Canada, the Himalayas and China. Although the story and setting are fictitious, both are heavily inspired by these places: the animals and vegetation, the landscapes and skies, and the shifts in weather and lighting. Echoing the genres of painterly and musical nocturnes, this book is driven by its ambient, nighttime setting – a realm populated by wandering monsters. It is about being lost, lonely and homesick. While relating to graphic novels and illustrated fairytales, this book is also akin to an illuminated manuscript or a grimoire.
A tentative, uncertain, and vaguely autobiographical odyssey, Book of Nineteen Nocturnes tells a story of wandering, a search for belonging, that ultimately results in the discovery of one’s own very intimate otherness. At the intersection of Lewis Caroll, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Guillermo del Toro, this travel narrative draws heterogenous, aeonic memories of Earth’s deep time into a monstrous, supernatural and dreamlike universe. As in a post-humanist dream, trees show off their capacity for reason, sensitive matter mingles with the living, species fuse into complex hybrids that defy classification. In the form of a tale, he reveals a twilight world where “reality,” merging with dreams and diverging from appearances, becomes a fleeting concept, intelligible only through a differed or displaced gaze. In this sense, Book of Nineteen Nocturnes echoes a long line of philosophical interrogations of the real, whether the latter be cosmic, quantum, or metaphysical.
Jim Holyoak is a drawer and writer, based in British Columbia, Canada. His discipline is comprised of book arts, ink-painting, and room-sized drawing installations. In parallel to his solo practice, Holyoak has orchestrated numerous collaborative drawing projects, often with fellow artist Matt Shane, and sometimes involving hundreds of people drawing together. Holyoak received a BFA from the University of Victoria, an MFA from Concordia University, and studied as an apprentice to master ink-painter Shen Ling Xiang, in Yangshuo, China. He has attended artist-residencies in New York, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Banff, The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, and throughout Norway. His work has circulated widely in Europe and North America, including at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the GEM Museum of Contemporary Art in The Hague, Tegnerforbundet (Drawing Association) in Oslo, the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art in Rīga, and the Carnegie Mellon International Drawing Symposium in Pittsburgh. Holyoak’s work was featured in the We Are Monsters issue of Border Crossings Magazine and the Feminisms issue of Esse Magazine.
For more information about Holyoak’s work visit his website or follow him on Instagram