Amer Kobaslija
During May and June, the George Adams Gallery will present new paintings by AMER KOBASLIJA. The exhibition continues his examination of vertiginous perspectives in distinct spaces - the artist's New York studio, his current workspace in Florida and public restrooms - but with a few new twists.
The works in the exhibition, some 15 paintings in all created over the past six months, range in scale from 6 x 8 inches up to 7 x 12 feet. The shifts in scale, often depicting the same view, reveal Kobaslija's interest in describing the intimacy and physicality of a space.
Kobaslija's interiors are recently inhabited, messy and chaotic, where every detail is rendered in sharp focus. Unlike the claustrophobic rooms depicted in his 2006 gallery exhibition, in this new work there are rooms off of rooms, even natural light and views out the window. In Northern Light, 2007, for example, Kobaslija depicts an aerial perspective of a men's room looking down at a row of stalls. The surprising intense blue of the floor tiles as well as the daylight pouring in from the large plate glass windows present a departure from the earlier almost monochromatic studio scenes. Similarly, in the Florida Studio paintings, color is derived from green walls and light is carefully filtered through the blinds on the windows that offer hints of the exterior landscape. In the series of paintings of his New York studio, there is once again no natural light, but the terra cotta floor tiles and the views from the studio space into the bedroom animate and expand each view.
Kobaslija has also introduced iconography borrowed from both his own work and from art history. In the miniature painting Florida Studio III, 2008, familiar objects from the artist's previous studio scenes reappear: a black chair, a paint splattered stool, the artist's palette as well as the paintings themselves hanging ad hoc on the walls. However, seamlessly inserted into the scene are an ox carcass hanging from the ceiling and a maid peaking from behind a door. Both are direct quotations from Rembrandt's painting Slaughtered Ox. The mix of real and imagined present a metaphorical reflection on the act of painting or in the artist's words, each painting becomes "a container of countless memories."
Since Kobaslija's 2006 debut exhibition at this gallery, he has had one-man shows in Los Angeles with Honor Fraser and at Galerie RX in Paris, and his work has been included in group exhibitions at the Cue Art Foundation, and the Neiman Center at Columbia University, among others. He received a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 2005 and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant in 2006. Kobaslija, born in Bosnia in 1975, received his BFA from the Ringling School of Art and Design in Florida and his MFA from Montclair University in New Jersey. He lives and works in Jacksonville, Florida.
The exhibition will continue through June 28, 2008.
Checklist
1. Florida Studio w/ Fish, 2008
oil on panel
42 x 56 inches
AKop 90
2. Christmas In New York, 2007
oil on panel
12 x 17 1/2 inches
AKop 79
3. Florida Studio I, 2008
oil on panel
11 x 14 7/8 inches
AKop 101
4. Chelsea Restroom V, 2008
oil on panel
12 x 16 ½ inches
AKop 86
5. Vacant Restroom, 2008
oil on panel
90 x 82 inches (diptych)
AKop 95
6. Vacant Restroom II, 2007
oil on panel
12 1/2 x 12 inches
AKop 68
7. Florida Studio 4, 2008
oil on panel
12 x 12 ½ inches
AKop 89
8. Studio With Chairs II, 2007
oil on panel
12 x 14 inches
AKop 69
9. Florida Studio 3, 2008
oil on panel
13 x 12 inches
AKop 88
10. Florida Studio with Self Portrait, 2008
oil on panel
42 x 44 inches
AKop 91
11. Vacant Restroom II, 2008
oil on panel
48x 52 inches inches
AKop 92
12. Studio With Chairs II, 2008
oil on panel
42 x 49 inches
AKop 94
13. Chelsea Restroom II, 2008
oil on panel
42 x 49 1/4 inches
AKop 97