I Am Your Moonlight and Flower Garden 2015

Jana Brike made this strange and affecting painting, "I Am Your Moonlight and Flower Garden," with oils, though it could be a dream. It's got this ghostly palette—pale blues and fleshy pinks, punctuated by red, red lips and the sharp white moths clinging to the figure's skin. The surface is smooth, almost porcelain-like, which gives it that unreal quality. You can feel the artist carefully layering and blending the paint, concealing the process, so what’s left is this perfect, ethereal image. Look how the fabric drapes, half-hiding, half-revealing. The crisp lace contrasts with the soft skin. Those moths—are they emerging from within, or are they drawn to the figure? This tension between vulnerability and a kind of haunting beauty is what gets me. It reminds me of some of the symbolist painters like Khnopff. There's a similar quietness, a sense of mystery, of something hidden just beneath the surface. It's like a memory, or a secret, and it leaves you wondering what it all means.