Jillian Mayer

Florida Contemporary 2025-26

Jillian Mayer (b. United States, 1984). Slump 14 – Figure 8, 2016. Fiberglass, resin, wood, hardware, oil enamel and acrylic, 48 x 29 x 48 in. Courtesy the artist. Photo courtesy of David Castillo, Miami.

Florida Contemporary, an annual exhibition organized by Artis—Naples, The Baker Museum, features artists with diverse artistic interests and backgrounds who hail from a variety of locations throughout Florida. The artists selected for the 13th edition of the exhibition are Mally Khorasantchi, Naples; Boy Kong, Orlando; Jillian Mayer, Miami; and Reginald O’Neal, Miami.

On exhibition

October 18 – June 28, 2026
Located in Norris Garden

Jillian Mayer is a visual artist from Miami whose diverse practice encompasses film, performance, sculpture, drawing, and installation, with many of her works centered on concerns surrounding the ubiquity of technology in contemporary life. The works featured in Florida Contemporary 2025-26 are a type of functional sculpture that Mayer has dubbed “Slumpies,” an ongoing series of utilitarian objects intended to function as spaces for sitting, reclining or slumping. Nodding to the pervasiveness of pocket-sized technology in contemporary life, Mayer envisions these objects as supports for people while they scroll obsessively on their phones. Their bulky, haphazard design provides an intentional contrast to the sleekness and uniformness of the technology upon which we all depend so heavily.

Created specifically for Florida Contemporary 2025-26, Mayer’s newest Slumpie, titled Pergola Spolia, consists of four separate elements arranged in a circle and is the largest Slumpie the artist has ever attempted. The work’s title references spolia, a medieval term derived from the Latin word for “spoils,” used to describe repurposed architectural fragments. Mayer’s Pergola Spolia includes multiple seating areas nested within a series of irregular arches that evoke the ruins of a Romanesque church. The work will be on view outdoors in Norris Garden, where visitors are encouraged to interact with it.

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About the Artist

Jillian Mayer (b. 1984) steeps her artistic practice in the verisimilitude of a generation that came of age in the 1980s. Mayer calls upon drawing, photography, video, installation and performance to enact scenarios of apathy, dysfunction and disillusionment. Indoctrinated into expectations of upward mobility, instant gratification and the succinct finesse of a television sitcom, Mayer critiques the dissonance between her childhood optimism and the state of contemporary culture with an erudite playfulness.

Jillian Mayer is a Miami native and resident who received her BFA from Florida International University in 2007. She has had solo exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City and Bass Museum of Art, in Miami. She has participated in global exhibitions at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami; Girls’ Club Collection in Fort Lauderdale; and 2014 La Biennale de Montreal, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, among others. Recent exhibitions include “Past Skin” at MoMA P.S.1 as well as solo exhibitions Slumpies at Perez Art Museum in Miami; The Occasional at LAX Art in Los Angeles, California; and Salt 9: Jillian Mayer at Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City. Mayer’s work is a part of important public and private collections, including the Perez Art Museum and the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami.

Selected Works