In Practice — Jon Pilkington

12.05.2025

In Practice is an ongoing series from the Norse Journal, offering a closer look at the people, places, and philosophies that reflect a quiet, enduring commitment to purpose, design and craft.

Known for his dense, graphic, colour-rich paintings, Jon Pilkington’s work blurs the line between abstraction and figuration. Everyday motifs such as ornaments, leaves, porcelain figurines and even football imagery are layered, repeated, and reworked to the point of distortion. Nothing is too fixed — clarity is resisted.

At his Copenhagen studio, intuition leads. Surfaces are built up through trial and error, drawing and painting overlap, and themes return across both canvas and ceramic. The process is physical and direct — marked by paint splatters, imperfect forms, and a rhythm shaped by chance as much as control.

For this entry in In Practice, Pilkington wears the SS25 Canvas Pack: the Marcus Overshirt in Workwear Blue and the Lukas Pant in White. Made to be worn and marked by process, both styles are cut from durable Italian cotton canvas — functional garments that take on character as they’re used.