The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present Florida Noir an exhibition of paintings by Amer Kobaslija. The exhibition will be on view at the Arthur Roger Gallery, located at 432 Julia Street, from August 3–September 21, 2019. The gallery will host a reception with the artist in attendance, Saturday, August 3 from 6–9 p.m. in conjunction with White Linen Night.
This is Amer Kobaslija’s third exhibition with the gallery. Featured are small- to large-scale painted representations life in Florida. The paintings express the tension between the surface of a place and the history rooted beneath the ground.
To paraphrase Tolstoy: Paint your village, and you will paint the world. After fleeing war-torn Bosnia in 1993 and living in Germany for five years, Kobaslija immigrated to Florida. Over the past two decades, Florida has became his adopted homeland. A land filled with murky waters, luminous skies, extraordinarily varied wildlife, and most colorful people. Florida is a place charged with history, and with a present that is turbulent and complex. These paintings are reflections on the artist’s surroundings, the place where he lives and the people he encounters along the way. Many of the characters in these paintings are the artist’s friends and family. The works implicitly reflect on the society and the bizarre nature of the times in which we live.
The more you look the more you see. The regional history is turbulent. The way the past seeps into the present is palpable in the paintings. Xenophobia and wall-building are the looming topics of our time. The context defines the narrative. As a painter, Kobaslija's aim is to engage with the society—not judge or impose answers but reflect on the place that he calls home. The implied narratives in these paintings are ambiguous—they thereby allow the viewer to project their fears, desires, and biases onto the vistas. It is about what the viewer brings to the scene. Paintings are portals. They are also mirrors, revealing as much about the seer as the seen.
Born in Bosnia in 1975, Amer Kobaslija fled the war-torn country in 1993 for Germany where he attended the Art Academy in Dusseldorf. In 1997, he was offered asylum by the United States and immigrated to Florida where he completed his B.F.A. in Printmaking at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL. Following, he obtained his M.F.A. in Painting at Montclair State University in New Jersey. He has had numerous solo exhibitions in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Miami In 2013, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and he is also the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2007) and Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2005). His work is in the collection of the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies Program. His works have been reviewed and printed in publications such as The New York Times, Art in America, ArtNews, Art & Antiques, The Village Voice, New York Time Out, New York Magazine, The New York Sun, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Florida Times Union. He is currently Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania and splits his time between Gettysburg and New York City.
For more information please contact the Arthur Roger Gallery at 504.522.1999 or visit our website at www.arthurrogergallery.com.
