Time Travelers 2017

Jana Brike paints Time Travelers with a mix of dream and reality, a touch of surrealism, and a whole lot of feeling. Look at the way she builds up the surface. It's so smooth, so blended. There's a push and pull between hyperrealism and something totally ethereal. The butterfly, the cat, the flowers floating in space - it’s like a symbolist poem. I can almost feel her hand moving, carefully building each layer. It's so precise, yet the overall effect is one of mystery. I wonder what Brike was thinking about as she painted it? The colour is luminous and otherworldly. And how it makes you feel like you are stepping into some secret, intimate moment? It reminds me of Paula Rego's work, this interest in depicting the secret lives of girls and women. It's a reminder that paintings, like people, are complex, contradictory things, full of beauty and strangeness.