GLOAMING

Keaton Henson

An unusual collection of illustrations entitled “Gloaming”, which tells the story of the invisible urban creatures that skulk around our cityscapes and suburbs in the tireless search of belonging.

For this ‘wordless graphic novel’ Keaton has drawn inspiration not only from his own childhood musings but also Scandinavian folklore, Japanese ghost stories and the tireless curtain-twitching of British suburbia that has silently accompanied him in his self-imposed solitude.

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  • This book is a study of the things we cannot see. It is an ode to the suburbs and the creatures that come to life within it’s mundanity.

    Keaton Henson

  • I spent my childhood alone with views of rooftops and chimney stacks, wondering where all the creatures from my storybooks were, why I couldn’t see them in the suburban landscape where they so clearly belonged. Now what I’m grown this idea keeps me company, and during a year of solitude, I decided my hometown needed monsters. The result is this book. It is where I live, what I see, and how I wish it could be. I call it Gloaming.

    -Keaton Henson

  • The deep guilt you feel inside you wants Keaton to share his soul with you, and he does, happily, sitting upon a stool staring out at you. You sit, you wait, he plays, and your hearts broken – all in less than five minutes. You spend your time, post performance, realising that you’ll never get to see an experience that parallels this.

    – Robbie Wojciechowski, The Guardian

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Coinciding with the release of his much-anticipated graphic novel, Pocko produced an exhibition of the same name at London’s Blackall Studios. The exhibition featured a range of original drawings from Keaton and centered around a unique and intimate one-on-one live performance from Keaton, who struggles with playing live in a conventional sense.

Inside the gallery space, visitors found a dollhouse-esque installation designed and built by Henson and the architectural artist Joely Brammer. The ‘Gloaming’ cabin was built to give a unique and intimate one-on-one live performance from Keaton, who struggles with playing live in a conventional sense. To those lucky few, the experience of a private session from Keaton was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

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