About the Artist
Elena Siljan
Painter & Photographer · Skopje, North Macedonia
Elena Siljan is a painter and photographer working in two media that keep correcting each other. As a painter she builds images from thousands of small, deliberate marks — pointillist dots and pixel-art cells. As a photographer she works slowly, in natural light, often returning to the same place for weeks until the light is the one she first saw.
Both practices start with looking, and end with patient, physical work: layers of oil, dots of acrylic, a single exposure that cannot be repeated.
I am not looking for the picture. I am looking for the moment when the picture stops asking to be changed.
Background
Elena grew up in Skopje and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, where her first training was in drawing and oil painting. The camera came later, in her final year, at first only as a way of collecting references. It turned out to be the more uncompromising teacher.
Her early paintings were loose and gestural. Over time she moved toward a slower, more systematic way of working — a grid drawn onto the canvas, a dot laid next to a dot — because the pictures she wanted needed a structure that could hold them together.
She now paints pixel art and pointillist series, and photographs landscapes, animals and portraits. The two practices travel together: a walk that ends with photographs often ends, months later, with a painting of the same subject.
Artistic Philosophy
A picture is not found in a single gesture but in the hundred small decisions that follow it. Elena's work is built from marks that stay visible — each dot, each cell, each grain of light — so the finished image never quite hides behind its subject.
Pointillism and pixel art are both about distance. Close up there is only a field of marks; step back and a face, a herd, a stretch of coast appears. She is interested in that moment of appearing, and in how much of the making can stay visible without breaking it.
In photography the rule is stricter: one exposure, natural light, no compositing and no retouching that changes what was there. What cannot be waited for, she leaves unpainted.
Techniques
- Pointillism
- Painting
Oil or acrylic laid dot by dot with a fine round brush, the darkest passages first. Highlights are added with a cocktail stick so each one stays a single, distinct point of colour.
- Pixel art
- Painting
A grid is drawn on the canvas before any paint is mixed. Each cell is then one flat, deliberate decision, so the image is composed twice: once as a sketch, once as a lattice.
- Layers & glazes
- Painting
Thin transparent oil glazes over a toned earth underpainting, each left to dry before the next. Where more body is needed, paint is pushed on with a palette knife and left unvarnished.
- Grounds & supports
- Painting
Linen and canvas hand-stretched over a chalk-gesso ground, toned by hand. The underpainting carries the shadows, so the upper layers can stay thin.
- Natural-light photography
- Photography
Tripod-mounted single exposures in available light, with the frame chosen long before the shutter is released. No HDR blending, no compositing.
- Printing
- Photography
Archival pigment prints on cotton rag paper, colour-checked by hand against a proof and numbered in small editions.
Journey
- 2007
Studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts
Drawing and oil painting first; the camera arrives in the last year, as a way of collecting references.
- 2011
First group show, Skopje
Two early gestural paintings shown alongside work by other recent graduates.
- 2013
The first pointillist series
A deliberate turn away from gestural painting toward a slower, mark-by-mark method.
- 2017
Photography becomes a practice
Long walks, one camera, one lens — and the rule that stays in place today: a single exposure, unretouched.
- 2021
The pixel art series begins
Animal portraits first, then landscapes: the pointillist method reduced to a grid.
- 2024
1st place — Monochrome Landscape Awards
“The Lone Tree” wins in the landscape category.
- 2025
Shortlist — Balkan Contemporary Art Prize
“Golden Shore” selected among 40 artists from the region.
- 2026
Solo show: Light & Silence
A new series of paintings and photographs at Gallery Kapan An, Skopje.