Gabrijela Parigros

Year of birth: 1978. 
Where do you live: Serbia (Zrenjanin town).
Your education: MA of Fine Art (painting) & Art Educator.
Describe your art in three words: figurative, surrealistic, neo-fauvistic.
Your discipline: oil on canvas painting.
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Your recent works are inspired by Alice in Wonderland. What drew you to this story, and how does it resonate with modern themes?

My absolute favourite book during early childhood was Alice in Wonderland. At the time, I didn’t grasp the essence of the novel, but I was utterly mesmerised by the wild and surreal illustrations created by Serbian artist Miodrag Bata Knežević. It would later become clear that these illustrations profoundly shaped the aesthetic of my entire creative practice—though I wasn’t aware of it at the time. Once I recognised this, it felt only natural to create an homage to “my” Alice.

Alice resonates beautifully with modern times. She wrestles with the same questions that trouble contemporary individuals: questions of identity, transformation through circumstance, (non)adaptation, and the ever-present need for validation. In my body of work, Alice becomes a secondary character, reflecting my own personal transformation, both as an individual and as an artist.

Classic Alice also explores the interplay between reality and illusion. In its original form, the story features fantastical, dreamlike scenes. Translated into our contemporary context, however, we find ourselves living amidst simulation—surrounded by advancing technologies, and most notably, artificial intelligence. Within this subtext lies the duality between reality and our perception of it. Can we, in today’s world, make truly objective judgments on any fundamental issue?

Alice also grapples with existential questions, which remain, as ever, the ultimate questions across all historical periods, including our own.

Gabrijela Parigros | Where are you going

Can you elaborate on your concept of “The Land of Dopamine” and how it connects to the challenges of contemporary society?

Without venturing too deeply into science, I’ll simply note that dopamine is a hormone produced by the human brain, acting as the source of pleasure, motivation, and euphoria. On the opposite end of this spectrum lies depression. From an early age, self-validation has always been one of the key sources of dopamine—starting with the acceptance we seek from our parents and later expanding to the approval of those around us. This process helps build our confidence and, ultimately, our sense of satisfaction.

Social media has introduced an entirely new array of dopamine triggers, creating, in a sense, a form of dependency. I, too, have fallen victim to this dependency. The connection between dopamine and my paintings lies in the fact that I experience two sources of satisfaction: first, during the process of creation, and second, when the work is shared online and the reactions begin to roll in. If a piece doesn’t make it onto social media, or if the response is lacklustre, the act of creation alone no longer feels sufficient to me.

I don’t believe this is a problem unique to me. Many contemporary artists feel similarly compelled to maintain an active presence on social media, as staying visible has become critically important in today’s world.

How do you integrate modern tools like AI into your classical oil-on-canvas technique?

The advent of AI has opened new doors for creativity and artistic expression. Every artistic discipline is engaging with new technologies and their possibilities in different ways. While many view this as a threat, I see AI as a brilliant tool. Rather than using AI-generated images as a final product, I treat them as a starting point. I craft deeply personal and intimate prompts, creating sketches that I later translate into the traditional medium of painting on canvas.

This reversible approach allows me to use new technologies in the service of time-honoured skills, preserving my profound love for classical painting. It inspires me to work with greater enthusiasm and has made me more productive than ever before.

Gabrijela Parigros | There

What role does social media play in your artistic process and your perception of validation as an artist?

As I’ve already mentioned, visibility is a challenge faced by all contemporary artists. In today’s environment of stylistic pluralism, diverse individual approaches, and an abundance of outstanding creators, it’s a considerable challenge to stand out, be noticed, and receive recognition that feels appropriate and satisfying. Artists are competing for a place in the spotlight, opportunities to showcase their work, and ultimately, access to collectors and professional auctions.

It’s no longer enough to simply produce high-quality art. Contemporary artists are now expected to master marketing skills, self-promotion, and an entirely new approach to entering the marketplace. Social media has become an excellent tool for achieving these goals.

However, the flipside of this coin, as I’ve mentioned before, is the dependency it fosters, which can become a serious source of mental health issues if our efforts don’t receive adequate validation online.

What challenges have you encountered while addressing the themes of technology and human emotion in your work?

Alice in the Land of Dopamine, though rendered in vivid colours, carries an undertone of darkness, alienation, and subtle unease. My characters never have purely human facial expressions, the settings—while containing elements of both the urban and the natural—are not real, and the creatures depicted, though they may faintly resemble familiar beings, are something entirely different. Everything exists in an imaginary world teeming with hidden discomfort.

On a subconscious level, I’ve likely portrayed my personal perception of the modern world and the technologies that surround us—a world in which we dwell, survive, and at best, navigate, but rarely truly live in the fullest sense of the word. Amidst floral surroundings and explosions of colour and form, my Alice feels a profound sense of anxiety, and each canvas represents an attempt to liberate her from this confined space.

The palette I’ve chosen for this series is my way of seeking a return to “happier times” (despite the themes), to a time when the world around us wasn’t grey, generic, and unrecognisable.

If we observe the world today—its contemporary design and the overwhelming trend towards minimalist aesthetics—we see a loss of specificity. Architectural styles no longer reflect their regions, fashion feels homogenised, and even cars are distinguished only by their logos rather than their unique features. Modern architecture in Europe is now indistinguishable from that of America or Asia. This uniformity hasn’t brought happiness to modern humanity.

I felt an overwhelming need to create an emotional balance between the unsettling characters in my paintings and the radiance of the colours chosen to envelop and impact the viewer.

Gabrijela Parigros | I’ll sit here for days and days

How does your educational background in painting and art education influence your creative approach?

During my education, I initially studied art history but soon transitioned to painting, earning my Master’s degree in 2005 under the mentorship of Professor Milan Blanuša at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Serbia. However, my journey as a painter began much earlier, in 1992, when I first embarked on serious preparations to study at an art academy.

Throughout my education and beyond, the primary components of my work—beyond the expected technical and technological foundations—have always been honesty and purposefulness. While “honesty” might sound like a worn-out cliché, it was instilled in me by my mentors. This left me approaching every piece of work with a certain degree of nervousness and responsibility.

As a result, I find myself utterly unable to create anything I don’t genuinely feel. For this reason, I’m not one of those artists who can work on commissioned pieces; such works feel entirely detached from me, lacking even a trace of sincerity, no matter the manual artistic skill I may bring to them.

Purposefulness, for me, means being able to justify my artistic practice at any moment—understanding its origins and the message it conveys to the audience. Combined with honesty, this has allowed me to fully embrace the third essential component of my work: emotion. Together, these elements enable me to create deeply personal and entirely authentic pieces.

What is your vision for the future of your artistic practice in a world increasingly shaped by technology?

Despite widespread predictions that technology will replace “the human” and creativity as a whole, I firmly believe this will never happen. History has shown us time and again that new technologies are, in fact, excellent tools for shaping human imagination. They pave the way for new media, and with that, new methods of creation.

While technology advances at a pace far exceeding the evolution of human psychology and emotions, I believe we still have the capacity to steer this progress. I am confident that this will lead to even greater and more meaningful artistic production, resulting in a wealth of fascinating works across all creative fields.

Personally, I enjoy embracing every form of new technology available to me, making full use of the potential it offers. This, of course, does not mean abandoning traditional artistic practices but rather enhancing them and remaining committed to continuous learning.