Soulsearching 2019

Jana Brike painted this piece called "Soulsearching" with oils, but I couldn't tell you exactly when. The painting has a super smooth finish, like porcelain. I'm drawn to the way Brike obscures the man’s face with stickers, flowers and the woman’s hands. Her touch is soft, but there's a tension in the woman's gaze. And those marks on the man's neck? It's as if he is being vandalized. But somehow the whole scene still feels tender. The artist’s process is visible in the layering of these images, and it’s not exactly clear. Are the stickers real, or are they painted? I can't help but think about Paula Rego, who also used folk-art themes to explore female experiences. Both artists invite us to look beyond pretty surfaces and see the world as a place of complex emotion, where the things that look cute might have a dark side.