Jan Vytiska

Bio

A graduate of Ostrava University’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Music (2005–2010, new media, prof. Jiří Surůvka), Jan Vytiska (*1985) creates paintings within the context of contemporary Czech painting’s specific pop-surrealist tendencies. Inspired by the aesthetics of street art and executed using a meticulous painting technique, his works are a mix of pop culture, updated elements of rural mythology, and folk culture blended with trash fantasy and elements of anthropological research. He invents anthropomorphic monsters that emerge like phantoms from dreamlike art brut worlds of ancient societies. Aesthetically, however, his eerily frightening stories more closely resemble contemporary animated stories for adults. There are moments of violence, visual shock, and scenes of horror. The scenes remain allegorically unreal but imaginatively specific. In 2017, Trafo Gallery published a catalogue of his work titled Paradise.