Lush – Jana Brike | Ray Caesar | Redd Walitzki | Rodrigo Luff

Lush is an exhibition of sensual paintings by Jana Brike, Redd Walitzki, Rodrigo Luff and Ray Caesar. Brike’s strangely seductive paintings explore our internal lives, with themes of longing, love and pain. Caesar’s neo-Victorian imagery, uncovers the deep desires and secrets we hide from ourselves. Walitzki’s ethereal portraits address unrealistic beauty expectations for women as well as the darker aspects of human impact on the environment. And in Luff’s pieces, goddess-like figures and animals are imbued with a sense of the otherworldly through his use of light.

Opening reception: Saturday, Nov 18th, 6pm – 9pm. Exhibition runs until Dec 3rd.

Interviews: Jana Brike, Redd Walitzki and Rodrigo Luff.

Redd Walitzki (United States) finds inspiration in the lush surroundings of her home in the Pacific Northwest and the ornate Baroque ornamentation of her native Bavaria. The vivid muses in her paintings are influenced by the glamour of high fashion, but Walitzki’s works also often explore the darker side of human impact on ecology. Her earliest memories are of painting at the kitchen table with her grandfather, pulling flowers and foxes out of the bright splashes of pigment. This initial passion led her to pursue a career as an artist, and Walitzki completed her B.F.A. from Cornish College of the Arts with a concentration in painting. Walitzki’s work has been featured in galleries on both coasts of the U.S. and in Australia as well as in Hi-Fructose and Juxtapoz.

Rodrigo Luff (Australia) is an Australian artist who was born in El Salvador. Luff creates ethereal figurative works of women and nudes in beautiful dreamlike settings. His works are ornate and lush, replete with elaborate references to the natural world. Luff studied traditional life drawing and painting at the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney from 2006 to 2009. Since graduating, Luff has shown his work in four solo exhibitions in the U.S. and in several group exhibitions. He explores a feeling of the otherworldly by capturing his subjects in trance-like states, dwelling in mysterious atmospheres. Using chiaroscuro effects and traditional figurative techniques, Luff creates a visual world that is painterly and surreal.

Jana Brike (Latvia) was born in Latvia when it was still under Soviet occupation. She began rigorous training in art as a child, spending at least 5 hours per day painting and drawing in an arts elementary school, at some cost to the freedom she might otherwise have enjoyed as a child. By her teens, she was showing her work in international exhibitions; she went on to earn a master’s degree in art from the Art Academy of Latvia. Brike’s work tells pieces of her own story but with themes that resonate universally: love, self-discovery, growth, exploration and longing. The imagery she employs reflects influences of folklore, mythology and Brike’s love of nature as well as her contemplations regarding the “feminine soul space.” Brike has had over a dozen solo shows and has participated in more than 100 group shows.

Ray Caesar (Canada) is known in the fine art world as the grandfather of digital art. Caesar’s works are partly inspired by Vermeer and Jan van Eyck, as well as 18th-century painter Gainsborough and French rococo artists Watteau and Boucher. He is also heavily inspired by Japanese culture. Caesar’s works are visual diaries of his life memories and events. He has paved new roads to the acceptance and transparency of works created completely digitally. His work has been exhibited extensively in solo shows in Europe, the U.S., Canada and Asia and has appeared in numerous prominent publications, including Huffington Post, The Globe & Mail, Vogue Italy, Vogue Japan, Hi-Fructose and Juxtapoz. Caesar’s works are collected by numerous venerated institutions, including the Bristol Museum, as well as prominent collectors such as Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy, the Hearst family and others.

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