Jelena completed her three-year postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy, London in 1990. Her parents were Serbian, and she was intrigued with their lives and cultural background. Discovering her roots and learning about her influences was important to her as a painter.
Jelena was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship at Belgrade University. This was an informative period, unfortunately cut short by the impending troubles.
Coming from a different cultural background, Jelena has always been interested in different ethnicities. She travelled around Africa with her sketch book and spent a lot of time in the Anthropology Museum which was behind the Royal Academy.
After her studies she painted in her studio in Antwerp for three years. She returned to England, where she trained in desktop publishing and worked for a newspaper for a couple of years whilst continuing to paint.
She was drawn to understanding more about the world and about herself. She spent 4 years learning about body psychotherapy and psychological process in the South of France.
She married, had children, and worked as a creative designer at an art school for 10 years, continuing to paint and also developing her computer design and publishing skills.
Jelena says that her studies at the Royal Academy and in France have influenced how she interprets her analytical and emotional thoughts in her art and how she integrates her working methods.
She works with oil paints, acrylic, print and digital technologies, often layering many methods and processes. Her work is reflective, playfully questioning and exploring aspects of the self. Is it about uniting and revealing fractures, developing and examining spirituality and personality.
She deploys many methods in her work and carries ideas through from print to digital to canvas and paint. Moving between media allows a flexibility and fluidity that she finds essential in her work.
Gallery in the Garden 