The Orlando Museum of Art (Website) will celebrate the opening of the 2022 Florida Prize in Contemporary Art this Friday, June 3 at an Exhibition Preview Party from 6-10 p.m.
This ticketed event will be the first opportunity to rub elbows with the participating artists in this year’s exhibition, as well as experience art-inspired chef creations, live music, an open bar, and, of course, the artwork itself.
Now in its eighth year, the “Florida Prize” is organized by the Orlando Museum of Art to bring new recognition to the most progressive artists in the State. Each year OMA’s curatorial team surveys artists working throughout the State before inviting ten to participate.
This year’s selected artists are:
- London Amara
- Francie Bishop Good
- Tomás Esson
- Dominique Labauvie
- Jared McGriff
- Hiromi Moneyhun
- Jamilah Sabur
- Gavin Perry
- Sara Stites
- Typoe.
The exhibition will feature multiple works from each artist created in recent years or on-site to give visitors a fuller understanding of their vision and diverse approaches to exploring significant ideas of art and culture.
One of the artists will receive the titular Prize, which includes a $20,000 award made possible with the generous support of local philanthropists Gail and Michael Winn. This year’s recipient will be announced at the opening party.
As a survey exhibition, the “Florida Prize” brings together artists of diverse backgrounds and varying practices: London Amara has adopted 19th-century technical processes to produce contemporary photographs infused with romantic spirit. Francie Bishop Good poses lively dialogs between brilliantly colored two and three-dimensional abstractions. Tomás Esson walks a line between abstraction and representation in high-energy paintings with distinctively social, political, and erotic content. Dominique Labauvie employs wood and steel in sculptures that conjure our primordial connection to nature and the forest. Jared McGriff explores Black experience in expressive, empathetic figurative paintings. Hiromi Moneyhun practices a traditional Japanese art of cut paper to create complex works that address contemporary issues of gender and power. Jamilah Sabur works with video, neon, and other media to examine systemic forces that impact social justice and threaten the environment. Gavin Perry pours and casts pigmented resins to produce sculptures and paintings that seem made of pure color. Sara Stites paints in a style that merges abstraction and caricature to create fantastical, dreamlike images. Typoe has invented a contemporary symbolic language presented as vibrantly colored light sculptures.
For more information on the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, the artists, sponsors, and the opening Preview Party, visit www.omart.org.
