Just kidding / sto scherzando is the ironic title chosen by Jelena Tomašević for her new installation project. To the minimal clearness of the exhibition rooms corresponds a work that is as much essential in the display as complex in the realisation. Two tall and thin structures, similar to pillars, standing in the center of the space, sustain four paintings each, that, together with the structure itself, slowly complete a perfect rotary movement, coming then back to the point of departure. A music piece, coming from a classical repertoire, functions as an auditory completion of this moving installation, amplifying the dazing and misterious effect of the scenes represented in the paintings. For its structure, the exhibition is an attentive and sharp consideration by the Montenegro artist on the expressive potentialities of painting, when it is avoiding the inescapable destiny of the steadiness of the gaze, typical of the wall-mounted work. Through the dialogue with space and sound, painting language eludes the two-dimensional impasse of the picture and frees itself from the narrative fictional condition to burst into life scene. And human existence, the search for its hidden meanings, small and big acts of violence that upset daily serenity of domestic menage, difficulties and pshycological disquiets linked to life conditions in western societies, indifference among individuals, the overturning of love places in mental prisons, are the recurring themes of Jelena Tomašević's painting research. Figures, common objects, architectures, landscapes, coming from her personal photo archive or from newspapers and glossy magazines, are then originally revisited in paintings.  Tomašević gives life to a series of scenes suspended between reality and fiction, a realistic little theater spiced with fantastic and surreal elements where the psychological aspect of the characters and the dramatic atmospheres play a crucial role in the composition of the works. Mounted on a steel support, these refined representations by the artist mix cultured painting knowledge with the freshness of drawing, partly inspired by cartoon techniques and partly influenced by the most educated cinema.

Gabriella Serusi