6 March – 6 April, 2015
EPEKA Gallery, Maribor

The Association EPEKA, a social enterprise, invites you to the opening of the exhibition of original panels of the comic strip Europe by the artist, comic artist, cartoonist and illustrator Tomaž Lavrič on Friday, 6 March 2015 at 7 pm at the EPEKA Gallery, Koroška cesta 8 in Maribor.

The new millennium. Europe celebrates.
Žile, ex-soldier, criminal, refugee from the wreckage of the post-war Balkans, crosses the Slovenian-Italian border to the West. He is pursued by the police, the State Security Service and the ghostly ghosts of his past. On the run through the countries of the United Europe, he is once again caught in the vortex of violence he was trying to escape. In Germany, he finally joins his uncle’s gang, but his troubles are just beginning. The magical Europe, the Europe of peace and prosperity he had dreamed of, is just as out of reach for him as before. As his friend Kugla says: “What did you expect? This is their Europe, not ours.”
Comic Europe, a Balkan road-movie of fast pace and cinematic action, hard-hitting violence and biting humour, was first published in album form in 2003 by the French publishing house Glenat, and you can read it in full colour now and see the original comic panels in the EPEKA Gallery.

Tomaž Lavrič was one of the first authors in this field to deal with the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the war in the Balkans. In his original comics, he mainly highlighted individual heroes (or anti-heroes) and their stories, depicting all the horrors of the fratricidal war, while at the same time commenting on and criticising the state of mind and the system that was always deliberately or unintentionally suppressing it.
The comic album Europe is an autobiographical story that offers all the elements of a typical Hollywood film and reads with ease. It has a mafia plot, romance, humour and catharsis.

EPEKA Gallery opening hours:

Monday – Saturday 10.00 – 18.00
Sundays and public holidays closed

During the exhibition it will also be possible to buy comics and albums by Tomaž Lavrič, offered by Strip.Art.nica Buch, with whom we are collaborating in the organisation of the exhibition:

  1. Europe
  2. Bosnian Fables
  3. Decalogue I-IV, V-VIII, IX-XI
  4. Extreme Sports 1, 2
  5. Blind Sun
  6. The Falcon and the Dove
  7. Appoline
  8. Declarations of the Decade.

The exhibition is supported by the Municipality of Maribor, the Office for Youth of the Republic of Slovenia, JSKD and Romani kafenava