Jana Branca

Jana Branca is a Fine Artist based in Taranaki, NZ. She completed a BA(Fine Arts) at the University of Pretoria and works predominantly in oil paints. Her work has been celebrated and exhibited by art institutions such as the New Zealand Portrait Gallery in Wellington and the Tasman National Art Awards where she won the ‘Supreme Art Award’ in 2022 and 2023. Jana’s interest in the nature of the human experience was cultivated by her early exposure to an array of different cultures. Having lived on 3 different continents, Jana has come to see the common denominator of our humanity; as the crown of creation; as more fundamental than any of our differences.  Portraiture and figure painting has become a vehicle through which she explores different aspects of the human condition. She is particularly interested in our reliance on a worldview to attempt to make sense of our experiences and how this, in turn, informs notions of identity. The frustrating boundaries and restrictions that we all contend with and a deep conviction of the intrinsic value of humankind are some of the themes that run throughout her work.