It’s Florida Prize time once again, and Orlando Museum of Art’s annual showcase of contemporary artists from across the state remains a hotly anticipated highlight for the arts and culture community. This year’s roster includes a pair of duos — Meredith Lynn & Katie Hargrave and We Are Nice’n Easy, the collab name used by Allison Matherly and Jeffrey Noble — along with Ema Ri, Charo Oquet, Jason Hackenwerth, Maria Theresa Barbist, Jessy Nite, Mette Tommerup, Rose Marie Cromwell and Francisco Masó. (Masó, it should be noted, is the winner of this year’s jury prize.) All hail from Florida, from as far away as the Panhandle and Miami and as nearby as St. Petersburg. Of note, this year’s Florida Prize doesn’t include a Central Florida-based artist — something that we inquire about below.
Making your way through the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art is both motley and harmonious; OMA has set up multiple galleries for each artist. Commonalities can be found in themes and complementary styles from one wall to the next, around the corner or by sound, like Masó’s throbbing kettledrum mixed with what sounds like spray paint cans hissing. This scores the crisp, clean detail of his polo-striped compositions that explore the fashion of repression while celebrating dissidence.
These sights and sounds carry over to Charo Oquet’s found materials that are spun together with massive and wildly expressive lines adorning the walls like an animated daydream that is alluring in its nightmarish technicolor and heavenly in its rawness. Ema Ri’s and Mette Tommerup’s works run alongside one another; Ri’s whips up a Bacon-esque chaos of frenetic and blinding abstraction, while Tommerup’s domineering, wall-spanning pyramids evoke the elements of earth, fire and water. Meanwhile, Rose Marie Cromwell represents photography with cinematic black and white images that are epic in size and scope, with a subtle underpinning of surreal humor and tenderness.
Meredith Lynn and Katie Hargrave share space with Jason Hackenwerth. The former duo created a conceptual installation on the who’s and how’s of the great outdoors, through a woman’s lens. Hackenwerth runs the viewer’s eyes through a gauntlet of bold colors and images, carrying on what Philip Guston and Cy Twombly started.
Sharp, orderly and calm are Jessy Nite’s text and textile aesthetics, elegant and salon-esque. The design of the light and shadow gives teeth to the double meaning of the work’s messages: “Endure,” “Retreat” and “Paradise.” The opposite can be said for Maria Theresa Barbist’s dropcloth-sized backdrops that are stunning in their childlike primitiveness. Some are like treasure maps composed on a cave wall or scenes from her imagination.
Finally, We Are Nice’n Easy construct a cotton candy–hued commentary on luxury brands and the aspiration to attain that elusive suburban sheen. Warhol-esque in its his-and-hers master-bath showroom execution, it would also be right at home as a set piece in The Graduate.
Orlando Weekly did a round of questions with some of the participating artists — Meredith Lynn, Katie Hargrave, Ema Ri and Charo Oquet — as well as OMA’s curator, Coralie Claeysen-Gleyzon.
The first line of inquiry goes to the artists. What does the Florida Prize mean to you?
Meredith Lynn and Katie Hargrave: So many artists we admire have been included in this show over the years, and it’s an honor to be in their company. To us, the Florida Prize highlights the breadth of work that’s being made in this state and the dynamic, vital conversations that artists are leading.
Charo Oquet: The Florida Prize is an important platform because it showcases the extraordinary range of artists working in Florida today. There is such a diverse and vital artistic community here, and it continues to grow.
The climate for artists has shifted considerably, mostly for the worse. How does this impact the next generation of artists?
CO: I have been making this work since the early 1980s — across the Dominican Republic, London, New Zealand, New York and Miami. As a migrant, a woman of color and an artist working outside dominant systems, it has never been easy. But artists learn how to persist and resist. Artists showed work anywhere they could: subways, clubs, abandoned spaces. Artists have always had to invent new ways of surviving and building community. If gatekeepers block the doors, you build your own.
Ema Ri: I believe the key to longevity in an artist’s career is resilience. It is essential to use one’s practice to process and respond to current circumstances, whether personal or global. As long as artists stay true to themselves and their work, they can navigate any environment.
How do you view the potential tension between what a venue chooses to show and what an artist creates?
ER: Artists do not have to compromise their values to be included in specific venues; they have the power to create their own spaces.
CO: Art serves many purposes. Some work shown in commercial galleries is shaped by market considerations and collectability. But not all important art is meant to function as decoration or commodity. Often the most significant work arrives before the public is ready to fully understand or value it.
Do you believe there should be further exploration into seeking support outside of state, federal and public sources?
CO: Absolutely. Today, diversified support is essential for the survival of the arts. Without broader systems of support, much will be lost — and quietly, without many people noticing until it’s already gone.
The elephant in the room: Central Florida isn’t represented this year in the Florida Prize. What gives?
Coralie Claeysen-Gleyzon: The Prize has always been conceived as a statewide survey. Each year, we look across Florida and select artists based on the timing and relevance of their current practices, rather than by geographic quota. Some years, Central Florida artists are part of that conversation very visibly. Other years, the exhibition may lean more heavily toward other parts of the state.
This year does not include any Central Florida artists, but Central Florida is still absolutely part of the Florida Prize story. Many Central Floridians have been showcased in the Prize; the exhibition happens here, our audiences encounter these artists here, and the conversations it generates become part of this region’s cultural life.
The Florida Prize continues to bring all corners of the state to our doorstep, which in turn brings us to the wider world.
CCG: Yes, many of the artists involved have gone on to show outside of Florida. … Some are in the 2026 Whitney Biennial.
The Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, Through Aug. 23, Orlando Museum of Art, 2416 N. Mills Ave., omart.org, $20
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This article appears in June 3-9, 2026.