The direct print of reality is always in a certain competitive relation to some kind of simulation. Regardless of how much we talk about the power of the optical illusion or virtually simulated reality, every fragment of reality or its print seems (appears to be) more convincing because of its own tactility. But the simulation represents a step further in the process of perception.

In the second exhibition of works by Slavica Janeslieva, i.e. in her graphic installation "Sheep-fold", there is such a complex game between the print of reality and its three-dimensional simulation.

Although the prints of the wooden surface texture present in the graphics of Slavica Janeslieva are already the second level of reality, they are not collaged pieces of the material (the wood) but simply printed copies on paper; yet their convincingness is inviolable because of the reduction of the artistic stroke of Janeslieva. In the first series they are reduced to minimal interventions with straight lines, while in the second they are completely absent. The presence of each trace of the wood's structure tells us that the piece of wood had once been pressed upon the paper and thus the paper had become a carrier of the shadow of its double.

The idea of arranging these graphics in a circle, so that they associate with a sheep-fold, already presents a game with the third dimension and the sign simulation. Namely, the primary three dimensionality of the wood is reduced to the two dimensions of the graphic paper on which all the traces of the cutting are visible, so that the third dimension can be achieved again by placing the graphics so that they hang freely in space in the shape of a circle. Thus, a portion of the gallery space is being enclosed, taken away from its original size, to represent what it actually is not - a sheep-fold.

"The Sheep-fold" actually is a narrative allusion to some forgotten rural environment, created with the reduced language of the graphic installation. In that way the ethnographic or folklore associativeness of the project is supplemented by the structural research of the material, the shape and the space.

Suzana Milevska