Pavel Vavruch
Born in 1928, Pavel attended Officinia Pragesis, a graphical school in Prague, already as a 13-year old boy and later studied portraits and still life under Emanuel Frinta.
However, Pavel inhereted from his mother, Mářa Vavruchová (1905-1994), a great variety of artistic genes. It was particularly his singing. He studied it first under a famous opera singer Žofie Navrátilová, then other teachers in Prague, and he performed as a soloist in choir ensembles or accompanied by a piano. In Västerås, he had, for a while, a promising student.
He studied philosophy, music and art history, law and aesthetics from 1947 to 1951 and again from 1962 to 1964 at Charles University in Prague.
In the sixties, he worked as editor in cultural establishments and magazines. He wrote about art and art education, folk art, music, architecture etc.
After the invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Pavel worked in a daily 'Práce', then he emigrated with rest of the family to Vienna, where he worked in the public relations department of a major insurance company, and later to Sweden.
In 1973, he was accepted as a postgraduate at the University of Stockholm. He participated in various research projects and contributed to reviews of academic publications.
Pavel Vavruch worked in Västerås konstmuseeum for more than 20 years and he was its manager for a number of years. In retirement, he ran his own workshop covering various aspects of art history.
In his paintings, the aspect of dynamic phenomenon in the static image, which he studied, is often expressed.
To quote from a review of Kristina Mezei (VLT 1995): "The story and own experience are important for Pavel Vavruch. He does not want to release the unbroken connection which he enjoys with the material resistance and its characteristics, colour flow and thickness, wealth of glazing. He balances all the time between abstraction and concreteness, between the non-figurative and simulating. It is a painting which is permeated by constant dynamism, of growing and changing. It is brought forward by the desire to dissolve the fixed and the static, but still does not release it."
(In Swedish: Berättelsen och ursprungsupplevelsen är viktig för Pavel Vavruch. Han vill inte släppa kontakten med det föreställande samtidigt som han njuter av materialets motstånd och dess egenskaper, färgens följasamhet och tjocklek, lasyrernas rikedom. Han balanserar hela tiden mellan abstraktion och konkretion, mellan det nonfigurativa och det föreställande. Det är ett måleri som genomsyras av ständig dynamik, av växande och förändring. Det förs framåt av viljan att upplösa det fasta och det statiska, men ändå inte släppa det.)
Separate exhibitions:
Gallery Nykvarn in 1993, 1997 and 2001
Västerås konstnärsförening 1995 och 1999
Västerås Cathedral 1997
Collective exhibitions:
Västerås konstnärsförening annually from 1994
Gallery Nortuna 1996
Open Atelier Västerås-Eskilstuna 1999 and 2000
Gallery Bellman, Stockholm 1999
