Jon Pylypchuk

Canadian artist Jon Pylypchuk (born 1972) has a unique talent for marrying the abject and the sublime. In his work, desperation and exhilaration, ugliness and beauty, tragedy and comedy are joined in images and words that declare that that life is a messy affair and we are the ones making it so. Like many before him who playfully expose the darker side of existence, Pylypchuk delves into the world of children's books and characters, where inanimate objects come to life or animals live the lives of people. Endowed with human attributes, the creatures populating his paintings, drawings and sculpture speak powerfully of the pathetic banality and stubborn optimism that define our path through life as a tragicomedy of epic proportion. Copublished with the Austellungskunsthalle zeitgenössiche Kunst Münster on the occasion of a ten-year survey of Pylypchuk's work, this book provides a comprehensive look at an artist who movingly summons the frailty of human existence.