Jana Brike grew up in Riga, the capital city of Latvia, where she still lives and works. She studied painting at the Latvijas Mākslas Akadēmija (Art Academy of Latvia) in Riga, and graduated with her MA in 2005. She first exhibited her work in 1996 while still a teenager, and since then she has had more than fifteen solo exhibitions, with her work being shown in galleries from Australia and Japan to the USA.

Her main interest is visual art with a strong narrative and depictions of women, mostly using the traditional medium of oil painting on canvas. She has also explored other mediums like drawing, animation, mixed media sculpture, installation and digital art. Her focus is the internal space and state of the human soul – dreaming, longing, loving, suffering – the vast range of emotions the human condition offers, and the transcendence of them, resulting in growth and self-discovery. Much of her work is unapologetically autobiographic.

As the Vinyl review on Jana Brike’s website explains, ‘For Brike innocence means living with openhearted immediacy. It is living out your wildest dreams. It is courage, it is true freedom that is not mistaken just for little liberties, and it is the ability to truly experience love that is not mistaken for living in illusions about another. At the same time it is about playing, enjoying the moment with fully open senses.’

Jana Brike’s website is here, and her Facebook account, where she regularly shows new work, here.

We are very grateful to our Russian friend Yuri for introducing us to the work of this artist, and for supplying most of the images.