Jelena Sredanović
Moments IV, wood lithography, 50x70 cm, 2019.
“When I am choosing colors my intention is to create an immersive atmosphere and space for contemplation.”
Jelena Sredanović is an artist living and working in Novi Sad (Serbia). Her approach to color is harmonious and her approach to printmaking is layered. Her translucent work is created with woodcut printmaking techniques and wood lithography. Currently Jelena is working on a new series of work realized in the technique of mokulito.
Are there specific associations towards color in your work?
I like blue because it is the deepest of all colors and in my work it is in the visual relationship with the depth of the sky, clouds and the sea. It is the matter of spatial depths, the one that extends over an elusive and indefinite duration.
Where do you reside between technical and intuitive in your work as an artist using color?
When it comes to color It is more intuitive than technical. When I am choosing color I follow my inner impulse following the impression which this color evokes in me.
Moments VII, wood lithography, 50x70 cm, 2019.
Moments V, wood litho, 50x70 cm, 2019.
How does color represent or support the mind space of your work?
When I am choosing colors my intention is to create an immersive atmosphere and space for contemplation. My opinion is that monochromatic combinations of colors are very harmonious and I often use them in my work.
Every colour has its own association. Blue and green are serene, peaceful and deep and those colors suit me for depicting transience and constantly changing scenes from Nature.
How does the printmaking process itself relate to how you work with color?
My printmaking process has included the search for the artistic expression in the representation of the images of Nature, their materialness and transience through the examination of the woodcut technique, the search for new potentials of materials and processes and the choice of colours.
Highly appreciating the woodblock matrix, which possesses certain expressiveness, I choose woodcut as my favorite means of artistic expression. The choice of colour and tonal values has an important role in my creative process because I intend to achieve the quality of depth.
I do not rationalize the number of color layers and I use a single wooden plate for every colour and it might be up to 6-8 plates for one woodcut which results in pictorial quality. Using translucent colors in more layers results with optical interweaving of colors and the subtle quality of my woodcuts.
Moments VI, wood lithography, 50x70 cm, 2019.
Moments series (detail of installation). wood litho, 50x70 cm each, 2019.