PETE KIRILL

I really enjoyed  Myra Gallerie's exhibition during Art Basel titled  " Comunist Dictator Visiting Miami" by artist Pete Kirill ( 1974), who is based in Miami. Kirill is a graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied fine art and design. In 2000, Pete began collaborating with the Cuban music group, Sin Palabras in Havana, where he spent the next several years participating in cultural endeavors and gaining a unique perspective on the impact of Stalinist-style propaganda and dictator worship.

Inspiration This first-hand experience of Fidel Castro's cult personality and fear-driven regime sparked in him a fascination with closed societies that continues today. That fascination caused him to learn more about North Korea. In the last two years, Kirill has worked towards initiating a creative dialogue between hypocrisy, spectacle and threat all resident within the North Korean mystery.

Through traditional oil and illustration techniques, Pete's “North Korean Series” investigates the relationship between communism and capitalism in a modern world – both the differences between, and the often ironic, similarities shared by these two dramatically different systems.