Šimon Sýkora

viennacontemporary 2022
booth Z02, Zone 1 curated by Tjaša Pogačar
solo presentation of Šimon Sýkora
September 8-11
Kursalon, Vienna

The comfortably melancholy works of Šimon Sýkora (CZ, born 1990) invite the viewer into a kind of hazy realm of wanderers and misfits. As if given the cold shoulder by a passing acquaintance, Sykora’s paintings do not open themselves as much as make one feel like a voyeur overhearing mumbled conversations. Sykora’s compositions are largely comprised of shadowy figures resting, meandering, or passively daydreaming in recognizably disheveled spaces. Existing in a reality that is almost violently Bataillean, the works explore the more internalized notions of the human condition-rather imperceptible, but agonizingly present and powerful in shaping one’s entire reality. Within the work, washes of anxiety, disappointment, regret, loneliness, mourning, and longing come to the fore.