b. 1981, Republic of Dominica

Firelei Baez Biography

New York-based artist Firelei Báez casts diasporic histories into an imaginative realm, re-working visual references drawn from the past to explore new possibilities for the future. In exuberantly colourful works on paper and canvas, large-scale sculptures, and immersive installations, Báez combines representational cues that span from hair textures to textile patterns, plant-life, folkloric and literary references, and wide- ranging emblems of healing and resistance.

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Often featuring strong female protagonists, Baez's portraits incorporate the visual languages of regionally-specific mythology and ritual alongside those of science fiction and fantasy, to envision identities as unfixed, and inherited stories as perpetually-evolving. These empowered figures' eyes most often engage directly with the viewer, asserting individuality and agency within their states of flux.

Born in Santiago de los Caballeros to a Dominican mother and a father of Haitian descent, Firelei Báez's concerns with the politics of place and heritage can be traced back to her own upbringing on the border between Hispaniola's two neighbouring countries, whose longstanding history of tension is predicated in large part by ethnic difference. Báez's work ties together subject matter mined from a wide breadth of diasporic narratives. In addition to self-portraiture, past series have examined ciguapas, elusive and cunning female creatures from Dominican folklore; tignons, head-coverings women of colour were legally required to wear in 18th century New Orleans; and the iconography of the Black Panther Movement. Báez often paints directly onto historical material, such as found maps, manuals, and travelogues, layering figures over them. By rendering spectacular bodies that exist on opposite sides of intersecting boundaries—between human and landscape, for example, or those reinforcing racial and class stratification—Báez carries portraiture into an in-between space, where subjectivity is rooted in cultural and colonial narratives as much as it can likewise become untethered by them.

Firelei Báez (b. 1981, Dominican Republic) received an M.F.A. from Hunter College, a B.F.A. from the Cooper Union's School of Art, and studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In 2024, Báez will be the subject of her first major US survey at the ICA Boston, curated by Eva Respini. Her work has been presented in many significant international exhibitions, including the inaugural installation of the ICA Watershed, Boston (2021), curated by Eva Respini, now on view at The Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas, and The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), curated by Cecilia Alemani. Recent solo presentations of Báez's work include exhibitions at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; and Pérez Art Museum Miami. The artist has recently participated in a number of group exhibitions at major institutions, such as the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Cleveland Museum of Art; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Baltimore Museum of Art; and Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai. She is the recipient of many awards, most recently the Cooper Union President's Citation (2022), Artes Mundi Prize (2021), and Philip Guston Rome Prize (2021). Báez's work is held in many significant private and public collections; the latter include the Baltimore Museum of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Dallas Museum of Art; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; The Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo; Pérez Art Museum Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Sindika Dokolo Foundation, Luanda, Angola; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Tate, London; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Text courtesy Hauser & Wirth.

Firelei Baez
featured artworks

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Zemi (A New Spelling of My Name) by Firelei Baez contemporary artwork painting
Firelei Baez Zemi (A New Spelling of My Name), 2024 Oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas
226.1 x 294.6 cm
Hauser & Wirth
Mawu-Lisa (I build my language out of rocks) by Firelei Baez contemporary artwork painting
Firelei Baez Mawu-Lisa (I build my language out of rocks), 2024 Oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Hauser & Wirth
Unbound (one way ashore, a thousand channels) by Firelei Baez contemporary artwork painting
Firelei Baez Unbound (one way ashore, a thousand channels), 2024 Oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas
140.3 x 291.2 cm
Hauser & Wirth
Ayida-Weddo (freed from all that is not marvelous) by Firelei Baez contemporary artwork painting
Firelei Baez Ayida-Weddo (freed from all that is not marvelous), 2024 Oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas
210.5 x 290.8 cm
Hauser & Wirth
Anacaona (destroy the beauty that has injured me) by Firelei Baez contemporary artwork painting
Firelei Baez Anacaona (destroy the beauty that has injured me), 2024 Oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas
228.6 x 207 cm
Hauser & Wirth
Huracán (beyond the triumphs of rootedness) by Firelei Baez contemporary artwork painting
Firelei Baez Huracán (beyond the triumphs of rootedness), 2024 Oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas
242.6 x 296.2 cm
Hauser & Wirth
The fact that it amazes me does not mean I relinquish it by Firelei Baez contemporary artwork sculpture
Firelei Baez The fact that it amazes me does not mean I relinquish it, 2024 Bronze
292.1 x 108 x 185.4 cm
Hauser & Wirth
Wanderlust demanding recompense by Firelei Baez contemporary artwork works on paper
Firelei Baez Wanderlust demanding recompense, 2016 Acrylic and ink on paper

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Hauser & Wirth contemporary art gallery in Hong Kong
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