Jana Brike
Ideas about life and what drives the human soul are shared themes between artists Jana Brike and Timothy Robert Smith. In her works, Latvian artist Jana Brike (covered here) explores the spirit of her inner child through rich, narrative imagery. Los Angeles based painter Timothy Robert Smith creates images based on life experience that are split up into multi-perspectives This weekend, both artists will debut their new series in side by side exhibitions at Copro Gallery in Los Angeles. For her new body of work, titled “Anatomy of Innocence”, Jana Brike depicts young people who are coming of age in intimate scenes. “The state of a human soul – dreams, longing, love, pain – that is what my visual images are about,” she says. Brike’s young subjects discover and explore their sexuality, their first kiss, intimate touch, as they move through the changes of puberty. Their experiences are depicted as innocent, awkward and pleasureable, enhanced by Brike’s use of symbols such as blossoms and other natural elements.
Timothy Robert Smith
In “”Multi-Dimensionalism”, Timothy Robert Smith focused on a more reality based interpretation of his collective experiences. “My work is an attempt to understand how our own, personal worlds fit into the ever-changing, agreed-upon picture of the universe. Do our minds create the world around us; and what, if anything, is real?”, he asks. In his latest oil paintings, Smith attempts to answer this question by exploring all of the possible perceptions of existence. His images split reality into fragments, like a kaleidoscope of images or “tumblevision”, as he calls it. “Branching timelines show alternate versions of the same person, repeating into an infinite feedback loop in a quantum multiverse,” he says. New works by Jana Brike and Timothy Robert Smith will be on view at Copro Gallery in Los Angeles from November 7th through 28th, 2015.
Jana Brike:
Timothy Robert Smith:
Los Angeles based artist 
Venezuelan artist 
Numbers of women artists still rank low in gallery rosters, less than 50 percent, across the world. With the exception of a few like Yayoi Kusama and Yoko Ono, women in the Japanese contemporary art world have yet to earn equal recognition. This is largely due to the historical conception that women were not suited to become professional artists. A new exhibition at Jiro Miura Gallery in Tokyo is bringing awareness to 19 emerging international women artists. "Ephemeral: Territory of Girls", which opened on July 25th, showcases new works by Jana Brike, Amy Crehore, Virginia Mori, Ania Tomicka, Emi Adachi, Fuco Ueda, Kaori Ogawa, Miki Kato, Kimi Kuruhara, Kozue Kuroki, Satomi Kuwahara, Atsuko Goto, Yuka Sakuma, Minae Takada, Tsubaki Torii, Yumi Nakai, Yuko Nagami, Yuki Nagayoshi, Mao Hamaguchi, Miho Hirano, Shiori Matsumoto, Eri Mizuno, and Yuko Murai.