Florida is home to a vast number of award-winning emerging to mid-career contemporary artists. Each year, The Baker Museum of Art invites three of them to exhibit their work in a show called “Florida Contemporary.” The idea is to expose local people to new work by the state’s leading artists.
“We make an effort to keep up with interesting and exciting artists who are working all over the state,” said Executive Director Courtney McNeil. “We could restrict it to just South Florida and still have amazing numbers of artists to consider, but it’s really gratifying to reflect on how broad and how diverse our state’s art scene is by including artists from around the state.”
The Baker Museum keeps a running list of the vanguard of Florida contemporary artists and visits the studios of those artists whose work will fit well in the three galleries dedicated for the exhibition.
“It’s in spaces that are not only open to museum visitors during the day, but patrons of the performing arts who come to any of our Hayes Hall performances,” said McNeil. “So we have to make sure that they resonate with the most serious museumgoer to the most distracted performancegoer, who really might be getting a cocktail in the lobby and strolling through. We want all of those patrons to have a great experience enjoying these exhibitions.”
The artists selected for the 12th edition of “Florida Contemporary” are Amer Kobaslija from Jacksonville, Cynthia Mason from St. Petersburg and Marielle Plaisir from Miami.
Florida Contemporary is on view through June 29, 2025.
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As in the past, “Florida Contemporary” features artists with diverse artistic interests and backgrounds who hail from various locations throughout Florida. This year's selected artists bring a dazzling variety of approaches to materiality in their work, ultimately testifying to the creative energies and intellectual vigor that Florida's art world fosters.
Amer Kobaslija (b. 1975) was born in Bosnia and has lived and worked in Florida since 1997. The paintings from his “Florida Diaries” series explore the landscape, people and history of Florida, demonstrating the artist’s complicated relationship with the state he calls home.
Cynthia Mason (b. 1975) is a visual artist whose background in architecture has inspired her fascination with the use of grids to define and control space. Her soft paintings and mixed media wall constructions simultaneously evoke both the beautiful and the grotesque.
Marielle Plaisir (b. 1978) is a French-Caribbean artist whose multimedia work includes sculpture, drawing, painting, photography and installation. Plaisir’s work critically examines power structures and fractured identity while also celebrating humanity’s interconnectedness and conveying hope for a better future.
The artists featured in Florida Contemporary 2024-25 will participate in a panel discussion celebrating the state’s vibrant art scene at 6 p.m. on Friday, April 18.
The Baker Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
The Baker Museum is located at 5833 Pelican Bay Boulevard in Naples.
The Baker Museum is the foremost fine art museum in Southwest Florida. Emphasizing modern and contemporary art, the museum hosts several traveling exhibitions annually to complement installations of works from its permanent collections. Dedicated to stewardship and scholarship, The Baker Museum provides world-class exhibitions and educational opportunities for Southwest Florida’s diverse community.
Courtney A. McNeil is an award-winning curator, art historian and museum leader with more than two decades of museum and gallery experience. The 2024-25 season is her fifth season with Artis — Naples as museum director and chief curator, where she provides dynamic leadership, artistic vision and strategic direction for The Baker Museum, crafting a vibrant curatorial program that highlights the unique multidisciplinary nature of the organization.
Prior to joining The Baker Museum, McNeil served 15 years in the curatorial department of Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia, ultimately holding the title of chief curator and deputy director for curatorial affairs. At Telfair, she was responsible for overseeing all of the museum’s programmatic activities, including collections, exhibitions and education, at the organization’s three distinct sites.
Earlier in her career, McNeil held positions at Childs Gallery in Boston, where she specialized in American painting and works on paper, and in the publications department of the National Gallery, London.
McNeil has a proven record of championing projects that complicate traditional art historical narratives in order to provide audiences with opportunities for authentic engagement and conversation around the most vital issues of our time. She specializes in aligning the activities of the exhibitions, collections and education teams and implementing data-driven approaches in order to fulfill strategic goals.
She has curated and co-curated a broad range of exhibitions. Her exhibitions have been recognized regionally and nationally with awards and grants from organizations including the Southeastern Museums Conference, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Florida Association of Museums and the Terra Foundation for American Art. A Boston native, McNeil holds a B.A. in English with a minor in art history from Georgetown University and an M.A. in the history of art from The Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where she authored her dissertation on John Singleton Copley’s monumental painting “The Siege of Gibraltar.” She also earned an executive certificate in nonprofit leadership and management from the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.