Foreward for the catalog in the art gallery of the cultural centre of Belgrade
Jelena Minic is a young painter, one might say - a typical representative of her generation who is aspiring to justify the meaningful dimension of her picture by her own rules. And that painting does not tolerate firm definitions: it can be explained neither by concepts of classical visual artistry, nor historic parallels, nor by post-modernistic principles without detriment to its own plastic integrity. Jelena Minic aspires towards a painting which is a process, a rhythm, a dynamism and an action. She tries to identify an idea, a perception, an emotion, an act and artistic material. She endeavours to express herself directly, without paying much respect to the existing language models, to the possible relation between the reality of the world and that of the painting. At first sight it might seem that Ms. Minic gives priority to a typically modernistic presentation based on the on the collage technique. However, if that process is present here it is understood in quite a different sense from that ascribed to it by the cubists, surrealists or new imagists. Her collage is a differently based visual game: it is a combination ( synthesis?) of practically all known disciplines of visual art. It is least of all a process which, by fragmenting specific visual image ( of specific semantic and symbolic structure) creates a new, essentially different vision. The connection between the pattern and final outcome is hardly visible in the painting.
At one stage Jelena Minic's paintings are a result of almost classical way of painting ( the preparation of the foundation, applicationn of layers of paint ) only to become, with the aid of non-painting materials, glue, collage details taken from other paintings, a unique field in which the physical world is finally transformed into the emotional and imaginative ones. In this way the canvass is finally transformed into a rich, multilayered surface which is pulsating with a new, extremely subjective, plastic energy.
What makes this method of work so special?
It is primarily in the way of thinking and understanding the essence of the phenomenon of visual arts. Ms. Minic is "collaging " different layers of reality ( from different times ) in the inner spase of her paintings - fragments of some former ( historically confirmed ) conceptions - " quotations " - which she is transforming with her forcible intervention into new meaningful facts borrowing some of e.g. Rauschenberg's or De Biefve's principles in that process. After that, using sand and other non-painting materials, crumpled paper , glue , found things, rags, etc. she creates a foundation on which she applies new layers of pictural materials occasionally resembling the experiences of informel. But, this complex, dynamic and frequently tumultuous process, inspired by some inner reasons of her nature, a feeling of absolute domination of visual is born which doesn't recognize and differences between figuration and abstraction, pictural and non-pictural materials, same as it ignores the logical function of a shape which is confirmed by empiric experience. Sometimes, out of that magma and controlled chaos a strange, imaginary figure appears as an arhchetypal symbol of the presence of rudimentary consciousness in the dark corners of one's being.
Each painting is reduced to several coloristic zones ( ocher, blue, pink ) without strongly painted contrasts : there is practically no pure black or white in the painting, the painting is living on its dynamic harmony broken into a visual ( formal ) and semantic comlexity and unity of feeling and consciousness of the beauty of liberated language. In this way the painting appears as an integral image of sincerity, knowledge and ear for authentic values of the idea and visual material.