Jon Pylypchuk

They were a bunch of outcast geeks thrown together by inclement weather and a love of drawing…“ (Robert Enright, ArtReview, 03/2006)
Jon Pylypchuk started out with playful, ironic and sometimes furious drawings and paintings. In his first exhibitions he presented plastic bags filled with little collages with which he described the monstrous everyday-life with various strange life-forms made out of glue, fabric remnants and drawn elements, commented by text fragments.
Together with Marcel Dzama and other friends and colleagues he founded the artist collective Royal Art Lodge in 1996 to fight creatively against the periphal existence on cold winter’s days in their hometown Winnipeg. They met every Wednesday evening to produce collective drawings, that were passed on from member to member around the table equal to surrealistic rituals.The involuntary isolation caused thousands of imagination products full of explosive power. The creative pool of the Royal Art Lodge was the starting point for the following development of the participating artists: Everyone of them went his own different way and advanced his solo career of international renown.
After moving to Los Angeles Jon Pylypchuk extended his graphical repertoire by funny droll trash-sculptures that he exhibited at Friedrich Petzel in New York, China Art Objects in LA and in the Museum of Modern Art Cleveland. Further presentations followed in the USA and Europe, e.g. in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit, at Alison Jacques Gallery in London, and Sies + Höke at the Artforum Berlin 2006.
Pylypchuk’s creatures, consisting of cloth- or fur-sausages, hair particles and wood residues, seem to be animals, but also bear human characteristics in their excessive and oversubscribed behaviours. His “creature creations” in the shape of sausages act as protagonists in films, in which they search for love partners in dating shows (The Dating Game, 2006), fight for the best sun place on the beach (Hey fuckface this is my nude beach, 2006) or let themselves being served the meals on wheels highly aged (Meels on wheals, 2006).
Jon Pylypchuk designs a microcosm of our society with an unmistakable handwriting. Neurotic, silly, cynical, depressive, sexual freaks are up to mischief through all conceivable human precipices, causing the amused viewer to end up choking on his laughter.
Sies + Höke shows completely new works of Jon Pylypchuk, among them paintings, sculptures and drawings.