Latvian artist Jana Brike creates oil paintings that explore notions of innocence and coming-of-age narratives.
Her inspirations for work has been as diverse as: folklore fairytales, children book illustrations, imaginative soviet animation films and supernaturally realistic classical painting; the colorful forbidden rare secret imagery of the western pop culture surrounded by mystical, almost religious tone for the soviet children; the terrifying war and deportation stories that her grandparents, and their little brothers and sister witnessed as small children; pompous alienated eerie atmosphere of the catholic church ceremonies in the Latvian countryside, and the breathtakingly beautiful ballet performances in the opera house, where she was taken since the age of two, as well as others. – all the bitter-sweetness and irreality of the every day.
The main focus of Jana Brike’s art is the internal space and state of a human soul – dreams, longing, love, pain, growing up and self-discovery.
Sailor’s Wives
Aphrodite with Kitten
The End of the Last Unicorn
Paradise of Shared Solitude
Gardener and the Centre of the Universe