Outside Looking In The Paintings of Amer Kobaslija
“I think it is about looking closely around you and responding with a sense of urgency. Not imposingviews but implicitly reflecting.” ~Amer Kobaslija
When you see the world through the eyes of the artist and feel their connection to the place or the people depicted, that is when they capture your attention. Hyper detailed and often layered with meaning, Amer Kobaslija’s work is inherently documentary, though not always literal. With clear mastery of both Western and Eastern traditional painting styles, Kobaslija creates dynamic environments bursting with color and energy that document the world as he sees it. His paintings vibrate with intensity through meticulously intentional brush strokes, vibrant colors, and unexpected perspectives. He particularly likes painting from “a moth’s point of view,” as he puts it. Through this orientation, an often fish-eye-like distortion, and familiar scenes and elements, he creates a sense of disorientation for the viewer, putting them both within and outside of the environment. His work puts a microscope on the spaces and environments in which we live, work, and connect, exploring the intersection of memory, history, and the physical present. They are portraits of the places and people he has encountered, full of energy and emotion, and rendered with empathy, humor, and compassion.
Kobaslija calls Florida home, but the Sunshine State was not his first home. He was born in 1975 in Banja Luka in today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina, formerly of Yugoslavia. By 1993, he had fled to Germany following the outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars, where he lived for many years as a refugee. He attended the prestigious Art Academy in Düsseldorf before being offered asylum by the United States. He immigrated to Florida in 1997 where he completed his BFA in printmaking at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. He later earned his MFA in painting at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Today, he teaches painting as a member of the faculty at the University of Central Florida.
He has had numerous solo exhibitions in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Florida, where he has had exhibitions in Miami, as well as most recently participating in the Baker Museum, Naples, Florida Contemporary exhibit in 2024. Most recent exhibitions include Zagreb, Croatia and Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; as well as Brig, Switzerland, a country which he began to visit since he was invited to the studio of the painter Balthus in Rossinière in 2010. In 2013, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and he is also the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2007) and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2005). Among other numerous public, corporate, and private collections, his work is in the collection of the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies Program. Kobaslija is currently a faculty member of the University of Central Florida, where he teaches painting at the university’s School of Visual Arts and Design.
