The Baker Museum presents Florida Contemporary 2024-25
Panel Discussion
Amer Kobaslija, artist Cynthia Mason, artist Marielle Plaisir, artist
Join the artists featured in Florida Contemporary 2024-25 for a lively panel discussion. Florida Contemporary is an annual exhibition presentation of work by a select group of notable visual artists practicing in Florida. Highlighting the breadth of artistic approaches to personal, local and global themes, Florida Contemporary invites visitors to celebrate the state’s vibrant art scene. The artists selected for the 12th edition of the exhibition are Amer Kobaslija, Jacksonville; Cynthia Mason, St. Petersburg; and Marielle Plaisir, Miami. As in the past, the exhibition features artists with diverse artistic interests and backgrounds who hail from a variety of locations throughout Florida. These dynamic artists testify to the creative energies and intellectual vigor present in the state’s visual art world.
All exhibition lecture tickets include same-day admission to The Baker Museum.
Amer Kobaslija
Amer Kobaslija
Amer Kobaslija (b. 1975) was born in Bosnia and currently lives in Jacksonville. He received his BFA from Ringling College of Art, and his MFA from Montclair State University. His work is in multiple public collections, including The de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara; the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brussels, Belgium; Staten Island Museum, New York and the Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga. He is a recipient of both The Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2005) and The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2006). In 2013, he was awarded The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. In 2017, he completed a residency in Brig, Switzerland. Kobaslija is currently a faculty member of the University of Central Florida, teaching painting in the university’s School of Visual Arts and Design.
Cynthia Mason
Cynthia Mason
Cynthia Mason’s (b.1975) artistic practice is based in St. Petersburg, Florida. She received her BFA from Ringling College of Art and received her MFA from the University of South Florida. In addition to a recent residency with the Jentel Artists Residency Program (2024), she has completed residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts (2023) and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2023). Her work has been featured in over 50 group exhibitions around the world; recent solo exhibitions include Limp Grid at Parallelogram Gallery, Tampa (2018), and Fragile State at 621 Gallery, Tallahassee (2017). In 2019, she was a recipient of the Creative Pinellas Professional Artist Grant.
Marielle Plaisir
Marielle Plaisir
Marielle Plaisir (b.1978) grew up in Le Havre, France, and Guadeloupe. Today, she lives and works in Miami. She studied at the University of Bordeaux III, France, and the Honors Advanced School of Fine Arts and Decorative Arts of Bordeaux. She has held artist residencies at Oolite Arts, Miami Beach, Florida, 2019-21; The Hambidge Center, Rabun County, Georgia, 2022; and Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, Colorado, 2022. She was awarded the gold medal in two international biennials: at the 2004 International Biennial of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and at the 2008 International Biennial of São Paulo, Brazil, respectively. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami; the Gregg Museum of Art, Raleigh; the Museum of Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Martinique, among others.
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