Los Angeles pop-surrealist painter, Jennifer Jelenski, has a heaping spoonful of sugar ready to help make the medicine go down. And if she’s snuck a few grains of arsenic into that delicious sweetness melting on your tongue, so be it. Clearly the world as Jennifer sees it is far from black and white. Riotous with candy-colored details, at first glance each canvas seems to depict a Garden of Eden. Adorable woodland creatures frolic across the greenery-filled space. But her work has more layers than an onion. As the viewer shifts focus from processing the big picture to the smaller elements, it’s quickly apparent that the honeyed aspects are doing battle with violence and disorder. Those cute little bunnies? They’re menacingly wielding swords. Jelenski’s ability to create work that is both incredibly inviting and foreboding is unique. In the following interview we discussed her new series, Let’s Get Lost, her meticulous artistic process, and the sophisticated symbolism in her deceptively cute artwork.
interview by : Dahlia Jane
view the full feature in the December/January 2013/2014 Issue
