FIRELEI BÁEZ

Early Years

Raised on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Báez experienced firsthand the cultural, political, and ethnic dichotomies that would come to shape her work. She relocated with her family to Miami as a child before studying at the Cooper Union School of Art (BFA), Hunter College (MFA), and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her formative years instilled a profound interest in ancestral narratives, migration, and the untold stories of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora.

Firelei Báez Artworks

Báez’s visual language is marked by dazzling patterns, symbolic colors, and lush compositions that layer botanical, folkloric, and literary references. Her empowered protagonists—often strong female figures—appear mid-transformation, dissolving boundaries between self and place, reality and imagination, to assert new identities. She frequently paints directly onto found maps, manuals, or archival documents, rewriting dominant historical narratives and inserting hidden voices.

Major Works and Series

• Map Portraits & Diasporic Figures: Báez overlays spectacular bodies on historical maps and legal documents, challenging fixed representations and rendering identities ‘in-between’. Her portraits often depict ciguapas, elusive women of Dominican folklore, and women wearing tignons, referencing resistance and creativity under colonial rule.
• Installations & Immersive Environments: Her installations invite viewers into spaces animated by sound, light, color, and botanical forms. Báez’s environments are spaces of healing, survival, and transformation, foregrounding regenerative processes and existential freedom.
• Recent Projects: Highlights include Sueño de la Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream), an installation at South London Gallery (2025); her US survey at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2024); and prominent contributions to the 59th Venice Biennale‘s The Milk of Dreams (2022).

Select Public Commissions & Projects

• Sueño de la Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream), South London Gallery (2025)
• ICA Watershed, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (2021)
• Pérez Art Museum Miami, Bloodlines (2015)

Select Awards and Accolades

• Philip Guston Rome Prize (2021)
• Artes Mundi Prize (2021)
• Cooper Union President’s Citation (2022)
• Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award (2010)
• Jacques and Natasha Gelman Award in Painting
• Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting (2015)
• Chiaro Award, Headlands Center for the Arts (2016)

Exhibitions

Báez has presented solo and group exhibitions at prestigious venues worldwide.

Solo Exhibitions

• Sueño de la Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream), South London Gallery, London (2025)
• The Fact That It Amazes Me Does Not Mean I Relinquish It, Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles (2024–2025)
• Firelei Báez, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2024)
• Americananana, James Cohan, New York (2022)
• Firelei Báez, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2022)
• Firelei Báez, The Momentary, Bentonville, Arkansas (2023)
• Firelei Báez: Bloodlines, Pérez Art Museum Miami (2015)
• Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York

Group Exhibitions

• The Milk of Dreams, 59th Venice Biennale, Venice (2022)
• Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA>LA (2017)
• Prospect.3, US Biennial, New Orleans (2014)
• Berlin Biennale (2018)
• National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Cleveland Museum of Art; Tate Modern, London; MoMA, New York; Baltimore Museum of Art; Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai

Firelei Báez FAQs

Ocula | 2025