Jim Holyoak

The thicket
10.27–12.03.2016
Room 1

With an audio piece by Nick Kuepfer

“O you shaggy-headed banyan tree standing on the bank of the pond, have you forgotten the little child, like the birds that have nested in your branches and left you?”

— from ‘The Banyan Tree’ by Rabindranath Tagore, 1913

“The ecological thought… is a vast, sprawling mesh of interconnection without a definite center or edge.  It is radical intimacy, coexistence with other beings, sentient and otherwise.”

– from ‘The Ecological Thought’ by Timothy Morton, 2010

Following his artist residency in Mumbai (India), Jim Holyoak created The Thicket, whose title refers to tufts of vegetation or a dense growth of bushes or small trees. More specifically, the artist was inspired by the banyan fig trees that were frequent subjects for his observational drawings while in India. This tree often grows to an enormous size and in such complex ways that it can actually look like a forest itself. The banyan tree has the unusual characteristic of creating its own architecture through aerial roots that stem from its trunk and tangle with each other, forming a vast network of interconnected lines that reach downward from above.

The Thicket picks up on the rhizomatous network of the banyan, with its intertwined vines, roots, branches, and various articulations resembling our own bodily joints, like wooden knees, elbows and fingers. The artist has created a swampy, phantasmagorical woodland space that seems to stretch, dissolve and grow all at once. At CLARK, this abstract and graphic representation of banyans takes the form of an imposing drawing measuring 30.5 metres (100 feet)1, covering the entire perimeter of the gallery’s wall space. This complete occupation of the gallery creates an immersive environment where finding the drawing’s beginning or end becomes impossible, where there is no optimal viewpoint, and where the work cannot be taken in all at once. Rather, the viewer must navigate through a labyrinth of lines, whether standing at a distance for a topographic perspective, or up close for a microscopic one.

The Thicket demands that we pause, slow down and take a moment to fully experience the immersive nature of the work. In addition, a total environment is created through dimmed lights and an environmental soundscape composed by Nick Kuepfer, whose own practice involves research into acoustic ecology. Kuepfer’s ambient sound work evokes a deep space through modified and layered field recordings of crickets, dripping water and rustling leaves, lending a contemplative, enveloping effect to the installation.

Through this piece, Jim Holyoak attempts to dismantle the nature/culture paradigm by addressing the general ecology of the forest, whether it be mythical, scientific, or anything in between.

– Manon Tourigny (in collaboration with Jim Holyoak) / translation : Jo-Anne Balcaen

[1] And approximately 4 metres (13 feet) high