From November 2015 through February 2016, I attended the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec Residency in India, at the What About Art? studios in the Bandra district of Mumbai. Included here is documentation from my studio and sketchbooks, workshops and wanderings. Niyati Upadhya (of What About Art): What have some of the major influences of this trip been for you? Jim Holyoak: Flue induced delirium, 10.5 hrs jet-lag, the lost art of reading, banyan trees with vines that spill like wires, sleeping stray dogs, little brown bats at Jogger’s Park, hooded crows who flood the air at dusk, smog that looks like steam, going to the movies and drawing with both hands, hand-made brooms, 10 rupee boxes of crayons, coconut birdhouses, snipping articles about animals out of newspapers, Ganesh at the sea who sinks and rises with the tide, mangroves decorated with garbage, woodland trolls in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the man who fed every homeless person on Hill Rd, wax arms and houses at St. Mary’s Basilica, Churchgate Station lineups, Christmas on a Colaba rooftop, Fort Kochi bookshops, Sundarbans lightning strikes, Mt. Kanchenzonga, Sikkimese temperate jungles, streets like rivers of bodies flowing under pressure, the tremendous human energy everywhere, all those souls, blinding lights, ear-drum splitting horns, every colour of every colour and every colour combination, smiles and hellos, the studio like a sanctuary.
Christmas in Mumbai:
The Sundarbans, West Bengal:
Wild boar in Wayanad, Kerala:
Plein-air ink-painting of The Great Banyan at the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanical Garden, in Kolkata:
Trekking to Kanchenjunga, Sikkim:
