Jelena Telecki

Jelena Telecki’s practice is primarily composed of painting, punctuated with sculptures and spatial interventions, her artistic undertaking is the exploration of absurdity via a surrealist visualisation of both the personal and political. Embedded in rich narratives which are not always apparent to the viewer, Telecki’s scenarios are rooted in her Yugoslavian upbringing, engaging with the history and aesthetics of a world stuck in a vortex pining for a lost future. References to dictators, gimps, and deceased artists, her world building collides the powerful, idolised, submissive and secretive; here power, sex, death, violence, humour, the sacred and transgression find themselves bedfellows. Telecki’s masterful manoeuvring of oils show an artist whose subtle blending of references is matched by the smooth darkened shades she mergers into one another to present her figures and monuments, all housed in rich murky atmospheres. While her sculptural work sees contorted and concealed figures often sitting within the centre of the exhibition space, neither passive or active, their agency is always unknown. Concealing is a recuring theme in Telecki’s oeuvre, from the extreme with fetishistic characters in full latex suits, to series exploring the more visible everyday “costumes”, featuring priests, soldiers, airline workers, marching band musicians and pre-war stage performers. Her work plays in grey zones.

Telecki lives and works in Sydney; her work has been exhibited at significant Australian institutions, including: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2024), Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2023), Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2022), Artspace, Sydney (2021) and Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2014). Alongside these presentations Telecki has taken part in group exhibitions and major solo presentations at numerous galleries, including: Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney (2023), Hazelhurst Regional Art Gallery, NSW (2023), KNULP, Sydney (2022), Murray Art Museum Albury, Albury (2022), Neon Parc, Melbourne (2019), COMA, Sydney (2019), Firstdraft, Sydney (2018), Station Gallery, Melbourne (2016) and Gallery 9, Sydney (2014). Recent awards include: Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship (2022), New South Wales Visual Arts Fellowship (2019) and John Fries Award (2018).