Exhibition by Latvian artist Franceska Kirke opens in St Petersburg [24 Nov 2006]

On 25 November, in the New World of Art exhibition hall in St Petersburg ("Новий мир исскуства") will open a personal exhibition entitled Dedication to the Hermitage by Latvian artist Franceska Kirke, Ms Kirke will also attend the official opening of the exhibition.

The exhibition has been organised by Latvia's Consul-General in St Petersburg, in collaboration with the New World of Art exhibition hall, and with the support of the Latvian Foreign Ministry. Displayed at the exhibition will be works from Ms Kirke's artistic cycles of the past few years: Museum, Decorative Art, Fetish, the Endangered, and others. The art works are characterised by a clever irony, "improperly restoring" masterpieces by Rembrandt, Goya, Velasquez, and other world classics, finding new realities through the eyes of modern man. Provocation, irony, play and composition – such is the style of Franceska Kirke.

Franceska Kirke occupies a significant position in Latvian painting. The artist has actively participated in major art exhibitions both within and outside Latvia since 1974. Among the most important are Nature. Environment. Man, in the church of St Peter, (1981), the New Latvian Artists' exhibition Post-Traditionalism in the Central Artists' Building in Moscow (1988), the annual Soros Modern Art Centre exhibitions, Baltic Art. Modern Painting and Sculpture in the National Art Club in New York, and the International Monetary Fund Gallery in Washington U.S.A. (2000), Latvia's Art. Twentieth Century, in the Zvolle City Museum, Netherlands (2002), Witnesses of the Age, State Museum of Art (2002), International Modern Art Exhibitions Art Moscow in Moscow (2004, 2005) and others.

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