In the studio with Jelena Bulajic

Jelena Bulajic’s paintings flesh out the profound depth of the human countenance, formally exploring tactility and surface with a unique mix of materials including marble dust, ground granite, limestone and kaolin. In her portraiture, Bulajic’s approach to her subjects is observational: concerned with capturing the passage of time and the effects of individual histories, the gaze from within the paintings is presented without narrative or commentary. More recently Bulajic has extended traditional notions of portraiture beyond the human character – expanding her treatment of surface as a dualistic reflection of physical layers: human skin, water, the sky as well as the paint itself on the canvas is the “life material” of the work. Committed to the physicality of her materials, she plays with control and lack thereof in an uncompromising negotiation of surface tension and quality to produce meaning. Her latest paintings will be exhibited at Carlier | Gebauer during Gallery Weekend Berlin 2020.