" Completely wild painting"
Regarding the exhibition of the painter Jelena Minic
I cherish, I would say, a kind of associative painting where everyone can stand in front of the painting and tell his, or her story. There is no final solution, not there is an explanation, and I personaly think that every explanation only makes things poorer, says Jelena Minic.
The Gallery of Prijepolje Museum was too small to accommodate all of those who wanted to attend the opening of the first independant (solo) exhibition of the painter from Prijepolje, Jelena Minic. Considering Jelena’s wild creativity, she creates canvases of several metres formats, so the audience was able to see some of her „smaller“ paintings. Not only for the paintings, but for energies that shine out from colorite, from every association, it is clear that this is about the artist of the huge formats.
In a pleiad of the painters from Prijepolje, Jelena has gone the furthest and she not only graduated, but also aftergraduated from her studies. She has won many awards: medallion of „ The White Angel“ of Mileševa Painting Collony, special Award for painting at Biennial of Miniature Art – Gornji Milanovac, a „Golden pallet“ for painting at Spring Exhibition in Belgrade in 1995, she also took part in thirty group and solo exhibitions. However, in her biography, the medallion of “The White Angel” sets aside as the most valuable. Ten years have past since, and Jelena Minic only now presents her creativity to art lovers in Prijepolje.
- Why were your fellow townsmen waiting so long for such an atractive exhibition and, by all means, exceptional paintings, too?
- For no special reason. It was more the matter of organization, contacts with the Gallery, space, my time. As for the award of the medallion of “The White Angel”, I always emphasize that it has been the most important award for me. It was the first award during the period of my early creativity, while I was at the beginning of searching for some kind of the painting poetics, and I have to say that it meant a lot to me not only because of its biography, but because at that time I started experimenting with different materials. Of course, I felt a little insecure, I was in some phase of selfquestioning of how good it really was, the work I was doing at the time. I was dissatisfied with myself and the Award came at the right time. The right time for me to be recognized by the connoisseurs of art as someone valuable, good and artistic. It meant a great deal that I was the first painter from Prijepolje to receive a medallion of “The White Angel”, eventhough everyone, and there weren’t few of them, were called from Mileševo Collony. It was a decision of a jury. Later awards, together with a medallion of “The White Angel” for painting in 2005, at Spring exhibition, I received with less excitement.
- Your painting, the painting critics call “total painting” today, games without frontiers, wildly creative and energetic. Where do you draw the energy and painter’s unrestraint?
- I think that is extremely difficult for any artist to explain his inner urge, as it is difficult for me to explain my paintings, my art. It is impossible… It started a long time ago, in my childhood when art was nurtured as a component of life itself, then, also during my studies, at the Academy, postgraduation studies… Ten years ago I started experimenting with materials, and it has been going on since then. I feel a need to create some apsolute atmosphere of the other world, the world out of my inner world. The other world that should appear, or disappear… My wish to reach my other self, some imagionation of mine is very strong. To your question why I chose this technique of work, I can only say that the material I use offers me more possibilities to keep the thought on associative, because I nurse, as to say, some kind of associative painting where anyone can stand in front of the painting and tell his, or her own story. There is no final solution, nor there is some kind of explanation and I personally think that every kind of explanation only makes things poorer. If an industrial product was “built into” a painting, a can or an old watch, the object loses its primary industrial dimension, because it was processed in some story or imagination of mine. It then becomes a heart of a shaman, or a bird. Associations are various, possible and impossible…
- How much were you attracted to some other painting techniques, as well as motives, landscapes, still life, portraits and also to something called “overly sweet painting” by the strictest criterion?
- All artists, of course, have to go through that phase during their studies. We didn’t enter the Academy to make painting “at once”. It is impossible. It is still questionable if I have achieved something that can be called my painting. Of course, I did many landscapes and portraits in the past and each artist should go through that process, but the fact that I am no longer interested in ones at the moment is some kind of my artistic state…
- Mileševo painting fluid has probably influenced on appearance of many painters from Prijepolje, starting with a painter and architect Milan Minic, until the contemporaries of your. How much growing up in Prijepolje next to your father, a painter, and your environment all together did route your life path?
- All of it did actually. The first knowledge about art I got in my father’s studio when I still wasn’t aware of it. He is a collector of antiquities so I grew up and matured in a space surrounded by works of art. All of that somehow “stacked” inside me, eventhough I can’t remember my father forcing me or influencing on me to follow his steps. It simply happened. I think it was the best way to happen. Of course, the environment itself together with some circles I spent time in as a child, stories I heard and “White Angel” in Mileševa, too had influence on me a great deal. Just today I mentioned that this environment has got some kind of spiritual atmosphere, and other, surrounding places simply haven’t.
- Your canvases force one to think, and painting is, in a way, very engaged. An enormous work on your own self is engaged, regarding your education and your search for your personal artistic form. From the standpoint of market how much does it pay to be an artist in Serbia ?
- I wouldn’t have done this kind of job if I had thought about it in that way. If one thinks of it as a job to earn money and live, then we can’t talk about it in the context of art. We can also say that at the moment we have many painters, hundreds of them actually, but real artists are few. I never thought of it in that way, but I can’t complain. I live good from my work, but I am aware that I’ll never get rich from it. I don’t mind it.
- Are you considering going abroad to seek for some new affirmation opportunities in Europe or elsewhere as a painter, because a great number of painters and artists go further in their search for something new?
- I think about it… but not too much. I used to think about it a lot in the past, but I got tired… When a person is a young artist then he or she should start going further. A young artist should try to taste the world. I don’t say I am an old artist, but I have many obligations and interests in my life at the moment. It would be fantastic if there was some manager who would do that kind of a job for me, because I simply can’t achieve it all. I would like to exhibit my paintings in Paris , of course, or somewhere in Germany as well, but that entails thousands of other things considering my engagement, finance, planning and time… This exactly forced me to leave my job as a professor of drawing at the Academy a long time ago, because it took a great deal of my time which I wanted to spend in the most creative way possible. On my paintings and art.
M. Cmiljanović