Andrew Jilka’s work is about looking for comfort in the unfamiliar while confronting the uneasiness and dread of the routine. It is an attempt to reconcile his “aw-shucks” plainspoken midwestern Wal-Mart culture with the language of capital P Painting. Jilka thinks of his work as a distillation of collective nervousness, anxiety, and optimism. His bright, colorful compositions use the illusion of logic and stability to ask what the painting’s relationship can be to the palpable uneasiness of the present. Through his painting practice, he explores the deviations that evolve into tradition, questioning the structures and foundations that inform contemporary life.