Pitin, Lost House (2010), oil and acrylic on canvas. 65.5 x 90 in.

The Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (HVCCA) is pleased to announce the opening of  Garrison Landing, the second solo show in the United States by Czech Artist Daniel Pitin, on view in the mezzanine gallery from January 9 -  April 17, 2011. This new body of work was created under the tutelage of HVCCA's Artist-in-Residence program where the artist lived and worked in Peekskill for three months. As a result, the paintings feature Pitin's trademark fictional settings evocative of theatrical stage sets, but with a resonance of the locale; in works like Psycho House, Victorian architecture looms forlornly amidst a bed of brushstroke and NY Times clippings. Elsewhere, in small paintings on canvas, Pitin crafts architectural structures of gesture, facial expression, and existential aura. Continued to be inspired by Communist-era television and film, most evident perhaps in Lost House, Pitin fuses the fictional with the personal, creating paintings that allow for the interplay of memory to take stage.

Pitin was born in Prague and studied  at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts from 1994 - 2001 in both Classical Painting and Conceptual Media. During his studies at the Academy, he twice received the prize for the best work of the year, was the recipient of the Henkel Art Award for artists from Central and Eastern Europe in 2004, and in 2007 was awarded the Mattoni Prize for the best new artist work at the Prague Biennale. His work as been the subject of solo shows at Mihai Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, and Charim Gallery, Vienna.

for more information on HVCCA's Artist-in-Residence program.