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Press StatementAbout the exhibit:
The "Lost Children" started as an idea about particular forceful archetypal symbols which evolved from the notion of human versus nature. "It has several shades of meaning," comments Brike. It is a reference to Never Never Land, an imagery world where 'Lost' boys move if incapable of accepting the strange terms of so called grownup life, and a darker reference to the French movie 'City of the Lost Children' (which is about a mad scientist who cannot dream and kidnaps children to steal their dreams, but as the children are afraid of him, he gets only their nightmares).
It is dark in a forest, and you don't see your way clearly, there are secrets and mysteries, and you can get lost easily. There are also sunlit meads to play in. Different creatures dwell in forest. Birdies, bunnies and butterflies stay in the alight places. The monsters, predators and witches lurk deep in the woods. But there are also wonderful secrets within the darkest places - forgotten castles, buried treasure and a virgin in need of salvage. Forest is a place where the boundaries between reality and fantasy become blurred, enabling intuitive perceptions and collective cognition, opening the unwitting, deepest part of our consciousness. The children are being taken over by this forest every other hour, although we ask them to be neat tidy and lovely, wash of the dirt every day, sit calmly hands in lap, not to stain their trappings.
By this I mean that this forest is more like the archetypal (uncultivated, mysterious, instinctive) part of a man, not so much the forest that is found in suburbs of a city. The children (maybe also just as a definite inner state of a man, not simply underage persons) stand for the most naive, innocent and also instinctive part of the consciousness. The clean empty rooms, the neat outfit - this all stand for the culture, for the mind which sometimes wrestles against the soul, but sometimes acts together with it to create wonders...
About the process:
Though Jana has created traditionally for many years in recent years she incorporated a computer as a new tool. When asked her response to people who view the computer as an easier method Jana replied "Actually the computer also is just a tool, the same way as paints and brush, and the way you use it to materialize the vision and to put a soul in the artwork, doesn't vary that much.. it's all just about what and how you want to express.." Further explaining her process " At first comes the idea. Then I build a three-dimensional scene using several computer software programs, just the shape and proportions. Then I search for the right color chord. And then comes the background - I often use some photo references for it, and also build a 3d computer landscape. The amount and manner of work that I do on computer actually varies from piece to piece. Then I choose the material on which to print, and then I paint with oil, to get hazier, patinated look." All images are rendered within the programs using only artist created images. They are then printed directly onto wood bases, onto canvas, or onto paper and then mounted to wood. Then the pieces are spot painted and finally coated with many layers of opaque paints and thick varnish. Each mixed media piece is one of kind and signed and numbered 1/1. The drawings are created traditionally with graphite on paper.
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