Amer Kobaslija's Studio Paintings

As we all have inevitably been spending more time indoors due to the pandemic, an artwork we've been thinking of recently is Amer Kobaslija's Painter's Floor with Chair and Ladder, 2005.  Kobaslija’s first major body of work documented private, empty spaces, particularly artists’ studios. By painting the often cluttered rooms in minute detail, he sought to create a portrait of their absent inhabitants. Over the course of several years, and on increasingly larger scales, he painted both his own and other artists’ studios, as well as vacant restrooms, closets and corridors.

“All these artists’ studios are different. They each have their own histories and may be haunted by those. The light varies and so does the smell, affecting my state of mind and also my palette. The series as a whole creates an ecosystem, self-contained and always changing. I like to think of these studio paintings as if they are happening inside my head. If so, then every one of these paintings operates as an allegorical self-portrait of myself and of these other artists and a way to deal with oneself through the act of painting.”