NAPLES, FLA.- Artis—Naples, home of The Baker Museum and the Naples Philharmonic, today announced the three artists selected for The Baker Museum exhibition Florida Contemporary 2022-23, opening on October 14 in the Hayes Hall galleries: Edouard Duval-Carrié, Miami; Ya Levy La’ford, Tampa; and Robert Rivers, Maitland.

CEO and President Kathleen van Bergen said, “Each season, Florida Contemporary presents a select group of notable visual artists practicing in Florida and highlights the diversity of artistic approaches to personal, local and global themes. The 10th edition of this annual exhibition invites visitors to celebrate the state’s vibrant art scene and certainly demonstrates the breadth and range of artistic expression in Florida.”

“This year, The Baker Museum team collaborated to create a strong edition of Florida Contemporary presenting three incredible artists: Edouard Duval-Carrié, Ya Levy La’ford and Robert Rivers, who represent diverse artistic interests and backgrounds and practice in a variety of locations throughout Florida,” said Museum Director and Chief Curator Courtney McNeil. “We are thrilled at the opportunity to work with these outstanding artists and to present their work to our visitors.”

Born and raised in Haiti, Edouard Duval-Carrié (b. 1954) fled the regime of “Papa Doc” Duvalier as a teenager and subsequently resided in Puerto Rico, New York, Montreal and Paris and now lives in Miami. A multidisciplinary artist and curator, Duval-Carrié’s works touch upon the complexities of the Caribbean and its diaspora and have been exhibited in major museums, art institutions and galleries in Africa, Europe and the Americas.

Ya Levy La’ford (b. 1979) is an artist and educator based in Tampa, working between the visual and the complexities of the human community with layered meanings—through a wide range of media including paint, sculpture, installation, video and sound. Her work can be found as sculpture, installation, mural design and exterior facades with a focus on the language of geometric design, symbols and ethnography.

Robert Rivers (b. 1950) is a printmaker, painter and professor of art at University of Central Florida in Orlando. In April 2010, Rivers’ nephew, Thomas Rivers, who had been deployed as a Marine in Afghanistan, was killed, and Rivers began to create a series of drawings in response to his nephew’s death. In the fall of 2017, he began joining these drawings into large panels measuring more than five feet high, launching his ongoing, epic drawing series called The Promised Land. His drawings are done in graphite red pencil, acrylic glazes, oil paint and other media. At last count, the series numbered 350 large-scale panels.

Florida Contemporary 2022-23 is organized by Artis—Naples, The Baker Museum, and is curated by Rangsook Yoon, Ph.D., curator of modern art, and Courtney McNeil, museum director and chief curator. The exhibition will be on view October 14 through July 16, 2023.