Alexandria, Va., December 5, 2007 - Paul McGehee's Old Town Gallery is delighted to announce "Europa", the first solo exhibition by the Czech-American artist Jiri "Iurro" Stavovcik, who is based in Fairfax County, Virginia. An opening reception will be held on Friday, December 7, from 6:00 to 9:00pm in the Gallery at 109 North Fairfax Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314. Admission is free and the public is welcome.
The exhibition is a mosaic of paintings from places that used to be almost completely off limits to people until the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, specifically the area of the Czech/German borderland called Bavarian and Bohemian Forests. This area of Europe is undergoing a transition from a place defined by barbed wires, border guards, and minefields to an area without a physical border between the nations. On December 21, 2007, the last guards will leave to symbolically end the long time divisions between the nations, and communities, ending the last reminiscence of the Iron Curtain.
Iurro painted in the Bavarian town of Furth im Wald and the small villages of Loucim and Pocinovice in the Bohemian Forest on the Czech side of the border. Then he traveled to formally divided city of Berlin where he painted near the demolition site of the Palace of the Republic, Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag. From Berlin he traveled back to the Czech Republic, to the town of Slavonice located on the Austrian border.
The exhibition will be on display from December 5, 2007 to February 29, 2008. It consists of ten oil paintings. Three paintings were made in Furth im Wald, four in Berlin, two in Bohemina Forest, and one in the town of Slavonice, Czech Republic.
Iurro is a Farifax county based painter born in Czechoslovakia, and raised in Cuba and Czechoslovakia. He is a graduate of Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic. For additional information please call the artist at 571-224-6603 or visit his web site at www.iurro.com .
Paul McGehee's Old Town Gallery is a private gallery representing works of distinguished artists: Paul McGehee, Richard Whitley, Iurro, and others. For more information please call the gallery at 703-548-7729.
Alexandria, Va.-Iurro joined forces with Czech artist Veronika Maria Sanderova to participate at annual VisualAIDS foundation benefit the Postcards From the Edge in New York City. Hosted by James Cohan Gallery , the annual event presents more than one thousand postcards from various artist from around the world. For more information please visit VisualAIDS foundation site at: