Jim Holyoak |

Inkscapes

69 Photos

Living Animals

164 Photos

Extinct Animals

91 Photos

Imaginary Beings

120 Photos

Human / Animal body prints

63 Photos

Humans

80 Photos

Wood, Flora, Fungi

63 Photos

Book of a Mere Fraction

BOOK OF A MERE FRACTION "Perhaps my life is nothing but an image of this kind: perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try to learn what I should simply recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten." - Andre Breton I've spent much time looking through my drawings as a collection, trying to identify themes and then pursue them intentionally rather than by 'discovery.' The big book, entitled, 'Book of a Mere Fraction', is essentially a morgue - a habit of image collecting that I have exercised my whole life – a habit accentuated by my art practice. ‘Book of a Mere Fraction,’ is an 80 page book of collaged images, each page approximately 40x40 inches. The recurrent motifs therein include: garbage, bats, dreams, notes to self, birds, adds, napkins, relics from travels, farm animals, life drawings, reptiles, felines, amphibians, insects, arachnids, childhood drawings, dinosaurs, poems, people jumping off cliffs, portraits, human-animal hybrids, imaginary creatures, cigarette warnings, doodles, note books, photo-copied text books, werewolves, ink tests, factory farms, newspaper clippings, politicians, family, friends, bullies, riot cops, Nazis, monks, punks, protesters, collaborative comics, quotes, rodents, zine excerpts, cephalopods, pterosaurs, moths, overcoming depression pamphlets, veganism pamphlets, mythology, fish, lost cat posters, lost dog posters, Egon the one-eared zombie, sex positions, birth and death stages, the sun, the stars, undersea, mountains, swamp, forest, and everything else that’s made of paper and hooked my curiosity enough to save it. This collection was made to serve a few functions. The book is a useful reference in my researching ideas, it documents the physical and mental debris of my process, and it is a work of art in itself. ‘Book of a Mere Fraction,’ is a kinetic sculpture, about 50 pounds of hand-bound pages wrapped in a black canvas hardcover. Each page is held together with masking tape stitches, and composed of drawings, photographs, and found images that I’ve gathered mainly over the five year period of my undergrad, the individual pieces of paper are in various stages of ripening and decay within their anti-archival lifespans. This book can’t be sold, and yet is definitely the most valuable single work of art I’ve made. It is a testament of relentless art working, and like a diary, an intimate memoir, a psychological self-portrait via the associations of the interconnected images. The title of the book, inspired by the Andre Breton quote used to open it, describes the exploratory, multi-themed nature of my image making and image collecting process. It is an obsessive, bottomless endeavor.

311 Photos

The Guy