Ivana Jaksic b.  1973
Ivana Jaksic graduated from The Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 1996, The recipient of the Yugoslav Youth Palette Prize in 2002, she has had her work exhibited in the Kolarac Gallery and the 43™ October Salon in Belgrade in the same year.  Her work consists of two related groups of paintings depicting "Prince Marko", a historic, heroic figure from the Middle Ages, and "Clara Schumann" whose face is printed on the 100DEM banknote.  These characters are central to Jaksic's concern with the fragility of the political and economic situation in her country in the last decade.  In her intricate, detailed drawings. Prince Marko who is a symbol of war is ironically reduced to a ridiculous cartoon or computer game character.  Clara Schumann is embedded in the subconscious of the average Serb through the everyday transaction of money.  By enlarging fragments of the 100DEM note and meticulously reproducing the image by hand, Jaksic renders Schumann an icon in a society where everything of potential value depreciates and becomes worthless.