Amer Kobaslija: Paint Your Village
Exhibition Dates: October 5–November 16, 2024
Opening Reception: October 5, from 6–8 pm
Gallery Location: 432 Julia St., New Orleans, LA 70130
Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 am–5 pm
Contact Info: 504-522-1999; www.arthurrogergallery.com
The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of recent paintings by Amer Kobaslija. The exhibition will be on view at Arthur Roger Gallery, located at 432 Julia St, from October 5–November 16, 2024. The gallery will host an opening on Saturday, October 5, from 6–8 PM.
Paint Your Village, Amer Kobaslija’s third exhibition with the Arthur Roger Gallery, features the most recent fruits of the artist’s fascination with the strange beauty of Florida. These compositions culminate in scenes of billboards rising over southern flatlands and gas station parking lots after summer rain, birds and their prey locked in combat. Images of goods and services are humorously juxtaposed, illustrating facets of metaphor inherent to our consumerism. In Kobaslija’s own words, “The aim is to allude and tease out specific themes beneath such images' surface. These paintings tell stories in a way somewhat akin to what Hannah Arendt once stated: ‘Storytelling is about revealing meaning without committing the error of defining it.’ It's not about imposing a specific message but rather what the viewer brings to the scene, filling in the gaps. The implied meaning remains elusive — allowing the viewer to project their fears, desires, and biases onto the vistas. Paintings are portals. They are also mirrors, revealing as much about the seer as the seen.”
Amer Kobaslija was born in Banja Luka, Bosnia, in 1975. With the outbreak of the Bosnian War in 1993, he escaped to Germany where he briefly studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf. In 1997, Kobaslija was offered asylum by the United States and immigrated to Florida, where he earned a BFA from Ringling College of Art in 2003, and an MFA from Montclair State University in 2005.
Kobaslija has exhibited internationally and participated in several residencies, including an artist residency and subsequent exhibition in Brig, Switzerland in 2017. In 2019 he was shortlisted for the Florida Prize for Contemporary Art by the Orlando Museum of Art. Other accolades include a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 2005, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2006, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013. He has participated in the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies Program, and his work can be found in major public collections such as the Consulate General of Japan in New York City, the Greenville County Museum of Art, the G.U.C. Collection, the Middlebury Museum of Art, the Rollins Museum of Art, Stadt Sammlung Brig, the de Saisset Museum, the Hunter Museum of American Art, the Staten Island Museum, and the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Brussels, Belgium, among others.
