Jelena Prokopović

Visual artist

About

Jelena Prokopović was born in Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia in 1992. She finished her (BA) 2015. and (MA) 2018. studies at the Academy of Arts, Novi Sad, Serbia.
She currently lives and works in Novi Sad, Serbia.
Jelena is member of MENSA Serbia Association.

Her artwork much refers to Magical Realism in Literature and Visual Arts.
Influences: Nadežda Petrović, Miloš Crnjanski, Mihajlo Pupin, Ljubomir Simović, Nikola Pejaković, Gabriel Garcia Marques, Federico García Lorca, Yayoi Kusama, Adrian Ghenie

Artist statement

I belong to the generation that spent its early age in the post-war period, poverty, sanctions, then the period of transition to a democratic social order, which continues today. Life in the Balkans at that time shaped the life of my generation with the awareness that our future would not be easy at the beginning. Unfortunately, this happened to be true, so having a normal life in the more mature period, become almost impossible . And that impossibility of normalcy had its consequences. Social circumstances, the development of social media, and various other things have developed a strong sense of apathy toward life in young people, turning one’s back on the community, and made strong introversion. This is certainly visible in my work, although it is not directly related to socio-political developments in my country. It is more a reflection of my inner state of mind and a matter of introspective perception of reality and escape from it. My goal is to create new imaginary world, cleansed of external influences. I create art as a category of personal asylum, which is largely a reflection of the present itself.