Echos from the Center of the World 2018

Jana Brike, who was born in 1980, made this eerie painting, "Echos from the Center of the World." It looks like oil on canvas. I wonder what Brike was thinking when she made this? Maybe something like, how can she show the power dynamics of relationships? The skin tones are so tender, like a Renaissance painting, but the woman's face and posture is wild. What a fraught situation; she paints it so vividly, as if this moment in the birch trees were about to break. The white trees and blue butterflies create a fairytale atmosphere, but then there's the red fingernails, the marks on his knees, the bite, all painted with such clarity that the painting feels hyper-real. And it feels really urgent. Painters often show their work to other painters, sometimes directly, mostly indirectly, and there is an exchange of ideas through time. I see that exchange happening here. There is no fixed meaning here, but something potent to hold onto.