9/2/11

The last days to see Blab! show in Seattle

"Dream of Father Gregory about his naughty altar boy Tim two weeks before Christmas"
*sold*

There are just a couple of days left to see the BLAB! Show in Roq La Rue gallery.


Blab! is an annual book, anthology of visual art, produced by Chicago based art director Monte Beauchamp. He is also the curator of the show.

See all the wonderful artworks, many still available, on the Gallery preview page.

5/27/11

BOOK OF TABOO show

photo © Kurt Lightfoot
 
 
  "A Diamond Heart for Uncle Tom's Taiwanese Girlfriend"

 "The Blossoming Wounds of Daddy's Princess"

 "Sticky Little Song in Lily's Head"

 "Little Tim Drinking Milk from His Mommy's Slipper"

 "The Cain Complex"

 "The Ecstasy of the Alter Boy Johnny"

 "The Wild Strawberry"

 "Five Sins of Amelia"

"Importunate Thoughts"


4/27/11

"book of taboo" show

to subscribe to the early preview to see
my upcoming solo show "book of taboo"
send an email to melissa@distinctionart.com


"The Blossoming Wounds of Daddy's Princess"
2011, Mixed media on canvas, 37.75 x 27.75 inches
Framed to 43.25 x 33.25 inches

4/18/11

Mythology of taboo

    
My solo show "Book of Taboo"
opens in May 14th
in the Distinction art gallery, CA, US.
 

If you would like to receive a preview of the show, send an email to

With a kind support of ArtHatch and Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia
I am going to be there present, and 
if you visit the opening reception, please do come up and introduce yourself,
I'll be happy to have a talk.




Below i share some discontinuous contemplations behind the creation

*
The color I use is white. On the one hand, I have painted all the pieces snowbound in the incredibly white Latvian winter, all the world around me glittering light.


On the other hand, white soft light coming from “nowhere” is a willful choice. A “child” archetypically is the bringer of the light, a hero. The main task of a hero is to overcome the darkness (the divine, the unconscious) and bring light (the human, the awareness). Let us remember that with the awareness the world was born – “Let there be light!”

The darkness is female (mommy) and the light is male (daddy), and from darkness through light also a child is born and grows up.


*
Hermafroditism is the consolidation of the most surprising and most powerful oppositions. A bisexual being symbolically is both – the projection of the initial entirety as well as a symbolic goal of human self-development.


Thus the cognizance of one’s sex also means the despair of being split and discomfort of growing pains.

*
My inspirations have been the paintings of Balthus from the period of 30’s. Here are some:

"The Golden Days"

"Portrait of Andre Derain"

"Therese Dreaming"

"The Violin Lessons"

Balthus insisted that his work “was not erotic but that it recognized the discomforting facts of children's sexuality”. It sounds kind of cunning, but has much sense. The esoteric side of sexuality and innocence is a contemporary taboo.

*

The other influence is the symbolism, esoteric paintings and poetry of William Blake.

"Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion,
Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.
From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.
Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing
from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell." (from Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”)

Hell is a pure unrepressed energy in opposition to the repressive nature of conventional morality of Heaven. Heaven is intellect (spirit), Hell is emotions (soul), and there is nothing condemnable in this Hell of Blake's, and i like his strange construction.

"The Ghost of A Flea" by William Blake 
*

The psychology of dreams, sub-consciousness, dwells on the borderline between the normal and the pathological psychology. It breeds interconnections to which similar are found just in the combination of mythological ideas – not the mature myths in a form of stories, but their elements – archetypes.

In my previous show, the main archetype which made the visual and ideological backbone was forest.

*

Creating a painting is creating a story from archetypes, id est creating a myth.

For an individual, archetype is the thing that manifests the unwitting processes. But the conscious actions are executed by means of logical thinking and willpower.

On the contrary, in a myth/artwork the unwitting functions are logical thinking and willpower, but the sub-conscious psyche determines actions and physical facts.

One cannot explain archetype, one can just “translate” it into language of images, and thus the art is born. Archetype is a constitutional element of psyche and a part of soul connatural to every human.

I do not paint children (underaged persons). I do paint the image of the “child” archetype, which represents a human state with the analytic mind in a slumber condition and with wide-awake hyperactive id.

*

Darkness as opposite of light also has the meaning of the ‘sin’ concept.

“Without guilt, unfortunately, there can be no psychic maturation and no widening of the spiritual horizon” (K.G.Jung). Denying to consciously experience the part of shadow (guilt and shame) in us, lets this shadow out in wild – we see the world as a dark place, tainted by sin. Becoming lovingly related to our shadow, guilt and shame, drags our shadow inside us, we absorb it and we become a light. The objective is not – ‘to feel’ guilt and shame – but it is to recognize and accept it. That is the simple alchemy of my book of taboo.

4/17/11

Voice of the Nightingale

by Wladyslaw Starewicz (in 1923)



4/13/11

The early spring impressions

jana had a little lamb...

...little lamb...

...little lamb.
Spring brings new tiny life.

Birch sap collection is a habitual thing to do when you're in Latvia in spring.


the spring landscape.



and a fresh coltsfoot tea* with honey to warm me up afterwards.

*coltsfoot tea is a wonderful remedy against cough used since ancient times till nowadays,
but it is contains powerful substances, so do not overdose it, don't give to infants and don't use if pregnant.

4/6/11

spiritual portraits

Check out this lovely portrait of me by the wonderful American surreal portrait artist Buddy Nestor (visit his page and see more women artists portrayed)
  
Jana Brike
Acrylic, Spray, and Graphite
16" x 20"
2010

3/8/11

lovesongs

because spring is in the air...


3/4/11

AAF London & special offer from Curly Tale

I'm going to be in the AAF London fair from 10 to 13 of March with some very new small-and-very-affordable oil illustrations on wood and some big beautiful paintings as well. Come and visit!





*update: thank you - to everybody who visited, and bought the artworks*

***


Now I have to tell you about a special offer from the Curly Tale Fine Art Gallery in Chicago.
Purchase any one piece from any artist at the gallery and receive the second piece from any artist of equal or lesser value at 50% off between March 1st-March 10th, 2011.
I still have some paintings with the gallery, don't miss the deal!

For more info and to buy some very special artworks (paintings as well as sculpture, one-of-a-kind art jewelery etc.) contact Anita Jerman
Curly Tale Fine Art 16 West Erie Street Chicago. IL 60654
http://www.curlytalefineart.com/
Facebook: Curly Tale Fine Art
Gallery 312.202.1664

1/12/11

THE WINTER PATTERN

painting > skiing > sauna > painting > drawing > sleeping > painting > drawing > sleeping > painting > skiing > sauna > painting > etc. etc., this is my winter pattern.
 
I’m working at my forthcoming solo show entitled ‘book of taboo’. The groundwork has been long and hard but fun, with contemplating and book reading. I have explored Freud’s Totem and Taboo, and You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos by Arthur, etc. Then thrown them all out of my head and painted, inspired by all my immensely white winter surroundings.
 
Here come some details: