"At the 20th Herceg Novi’s Art Scene, Jelena Garic presented herself with the concept "Who are you?" based on the fairy tale Alice in Wonderland. The concept included one painting, a mushroom made from recycled material and the artist herself dressed as Alice standing next to her work. At first glance, nothing out of the ordinary, couldn't the steep tunnel reach another fairytale land, Lapland, if it is necessary to save Santa Claus and Christmas? The difference seems small, close your eyes and fall asleep or type the right code on a certain tower somewhere in England; both precipitous journeys require the same thing: a child's imagination.

Garic's painting teems with motifs and is characterized by a "fear of empty space". However, the longer we look the more impressed we are by the creative energy that swirled, flowed, was interrupted and flowed again between the hands and the canvas, the vision from small details to the whole and the conception of how it should look, as well as the final result that has the main motif (a question addressed at the viewer) and secondary elements integrated into the dense and coloristic fabric of the painting. Jelena Garic, in addition to the story about the importance of recycling for this planet and its future, introduces us to a meta-reality that is at our fingertips, especially in today's time of confusion, acceleration and chip-communication."
Information is no longer stored in books and covered in the dust of time, and it no longer has the halo of significance it once had. It is everywhere, in the form of various prints on clothes, in iPods, on Facebook, in street advertisements, in the increasingly frequent editions of periodicals that seek provocation. The chaos of Jelena's painting is a story about the chaos of today, in which people have become less important than information, but, being constantly exposed to it, they  become ’Alice’ in a revived Wonderland because all the information is addressed precisely at us, as we become both lost and the center as  "receivers" around who information is spinning. It is people who produce and at the same time, consume information.

Thus, it is possible for an observer to recognize her/ himself in any character in a painting who looks provocatively at us and asks "Who are you?". Everything is fast, because here, a white rabbit with a watch, appears on scene, stating that "there is no more time". Hence, Garic's concept also has a very serious, warning message about the ever-increasing, almost constant need for humanity to find time, if it is still possible, to ask questions about the future and the paths to take; about the survival of the planet Earth and man on it, about much-needed yet lost direct and lively conversation, about proverb but today suppressed values. So, maybe Santa doesn't need to be saved this time, but Alice definitely does. Wake her up and bring her back to reality. After all, the present is still a dream that should be dreamed and undreamed of."

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-Jasmina Zitnik,

art historian & curator of the gallery "Josip Bepo Benkovic".