Gallery 9 is pleased to present Jelena Telecki’s latest body of work in her second solo exhibition at the Gallery, Roland’s mother.
"Many years ago I had, like many art students with an interest in photography and its use in painting, Roland Barthes’ Illuminations on my reading list. At this time I was trying to understand my attraction to images while questioning the relevance of the painting practice that originates from an image. I felt that regardless of my attraction to images, my painting process starts somewhere else, and after reading Illuminations I was able to articulate the true nature of my obsessive search for photographs and stills. In Illuminations, Barthes describes his search for the right photograph of his late mother, the one that would have the preserved memory of who his mother was: “I want to outline the loved face by thought, to make it into the unique field of an intense observation. I want to enlarge this face in order to see it better, to understand it better, to know its truth. I believe that by enlarging the detail I will finally reach my mother’s very being. This, what Barthes calls an ‘intense observation’ in search for the truth, also sits at the core of my need to search for a right image. Where Barthes was searching for his mother’s very being through this process, I have been looking for my late father, his life, our life and the absurdity of everything we experienced 15 years ago. In this sense, Roland’s mother became, in my mind, an epitome of the desire to come closer, to remember (or to not forget), to discover the truth, all the while knowing that the truth will keep on escaping, though hoping, that one day it may come within my grasp."
~ Jelena Telecki