Firelei Báez (born 1981) is a
Dominican Republic-born,
New York City-based artist known for intricate works on paper and canvas, as well as large scale sculpture. Her art focuses on untold stories and unheard voices, using portraiture, landscape, and design to explore the Western canon.[1]
She has been the recipient of the
Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award (2010),[3] the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Award in Painting, the Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting (2015),[4] and the Chiaro Award from the Headlands (2016).[5] In 2015,
Pérez Art Museum Miami organized Firelei Báez: Bloodlines. The exhibition catalogue included an introduction by
Franklin Sirmans, the museum director, an essay by María Elena Ortiz, an interview with Naima Keith, and a contribution by the writer
Roxane Gay.[6]
Early life and education
Báez was born in 1981 in Santiago de Los Caballeros to a
Dominican mother and a father of
Haitian descent,[7] she was raised in
Dajabón, a market city on the Dominican Republic's border with Haiti. At the age of 8, she relocated with her family to
Miami, Florida.[8]
Báez works as an artist, and is based in
New York City.[11] She known for intricate works on paper and canvas, as well as large scale sculpture and installation. In 2012, she began to create her ink and acrylic paintings on
Yupo paper because of its nonabsorbent properties.[12] Starting around 2017, the artist has directed her practice towards large scale works in which she directly paints onto various archival materials such as maps and architectural renderings.[13][14]
Her art explores the
Western canon through the elements of
non-Western reading.[1] Báez references various aspects of visual, material, and popular culture to represent the body in ways that challenge racial and class structures. She credits the work of
David Hammons as first sparking her interest in using art to abstract and visualize Black and Brown bodies while simultaneously conveying their lived experiences.[12] Báez also notes that science fiction writing of
Octavia E. Butler has always inspired themes of
Afrofuturism in her work, so much so that she paints a replication of Butler's
Parable of the Sower (novel) in her painting titled On rest and resistance, Because we love you (to all those stolen from among us) (2020).[15]
In fall of 2015, Báez had two solo museum shows Patterns of Resistance at the
Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and Bloodlines[16] at
Pérez Art Museum Miami.[17] In February 2016, Báez created a participatory installation with museum patrons at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. The program was presented in conjunction with the exhibition "The Power of Prints: The Legacy of
William M. Ivins and
A. Hyatt Mayor". The installation itself remained on display through March of that year.[18]
Public art
In 2018, she was commissioned by the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority to install two glass-tile platform-level murals and two mezzanine-level murals for the 163 St-Amsterdam Avenue
subway station. The intricate, tropical patterns of the artwork, titled The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao (after a novel by
Junot Diaz), refer to Báez' Caribbean background and to the demographics of the neighborhood.[19] The mural imagery includes flowers and vines of tropical and North American plant species; these complex patterns are interwoven with images of "hand symbols" and female figures in the style of Ciguapas from the folklore of the Dominican Republic. Báez describes the work as having a level of "transparency" to Dominicans in the neighborhood. The glass mosaic work was produced by
Mayer of Munich based on Báez' designs.[20]
Her installation, To breathe full and free: a declaration, a re-visioning, a correction (19º36'16.9"N 72º13'07.0W, 42º21'48.762N 71º1'59.628W), shown at the Watershed exhibit space of the
Institute of Contemporary Art, was inspired by the ruins of the
Sans Souci palace in Haiti. The formerly majestic mansion was constructed by the Haitian revolutionary and former slave
Henri Christophe in 1813, who had crowned himself king.[23]
Firelei Báez's work was featured in the traveling group show and accompanying publication Spirit in the Land, organized by the
Nasher Museum of Art at
Duke University in 2023 and on view at the
Pérez Art Museum Miami in 2024. The show touches on aspects of her by commenting on the relationship between human bodies and the natural world.[24][25][26] In 2024, the
Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston is exhibiting the first major career retrospective on the work of the artist.[27]
Can I Pass? series
Every day from 2011 to 2013, Báez created self-portraits in which she would paint a silhouette of her face, head, hair, and shoulders.[28] Each painting she created was made in a color that matched her forearm and resembled that of a paper bag. Through this color, she references the historical
Brown paper bag test to spotlight the discriminatory tests and practices that have been used to classify blackness in the United States. Her attention to hairstyles in these portraits of herself also connects the silhouettes to the fan test that evolved within the Dominican Republic that associates hair which does not blow straight back with African ancestry.[29][30]
Imagery, symbolism, and themes
Throughout her work, Báez references symbols and figures from Dominican folklore and history that highlight different aspects of femininity, race, power, and nature. One recurring motif in her work is the
Ciguapa that appeared in a series of works that she painted from 2005 to 2015.[28] Early on in this series, Báez painted ciguapas on books that had been decommissioned from nearby libraries and went on to paint them at a much larger scale on over cavases that measure over seven feet tall.[31] She also includes
Anacaona, another significant figure in mythology and folklore from
Hispaniola, in a map painting titled Untitled (Anacaona) that explores how the body can act as a symbol of resistance, independence, and struggle.[13]
Those who would douse it (it does not disturb me to accept that there are places where my identity is obscure to me, and the fact that it amazes you does not mean I relinquish it) (2018),
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg,
Germany[45]
Perez Art Museum. Firelei Báez : Bloodlines. Miami, Florida: Perez Art Museum, 2015. ISBN 978-0-989854-67-2.[52]
"Bodies of Color: Images of Women in the Works of Firelei Báez and Rachelle Mozman." Aranda-Alvarado, Rocío. Small Axe : a Journal of Criticism 21, no. 1 (2017): 57–69.
https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-3844078.[30]
"Flora and Fauna Otherwise: Black and Brown Aesthetics of Relation in Firelei Báez and Wangechi Mutu." Alvarado, Leticia. Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 1, no. 3 (2019): 8–24.
https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2019.130003.[28]
Firelei Báez: to breathe full and free. Firelei Báez, David Norr, Carla Acevedo-Yates, Mark Godfrey,
Legacy Russell,
Thelma Golden,
Eva Respini. New York: Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2022.[53][54]
^
abGolden, Thelma; Respini, Eva; Báez, Firelei; Acevedo-Yates, Carla; Godfrey, Mark; and Russell, Legacy (2022). Norr, David (ed.). Firelei Báez : to breathe full and free. New York:
Gregory R. Miller & Co. p. 27.
ISBN978-1-941366-38-7.
OCLC1349465849.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
^
abGolden, Thelma; Respini, Eva; Báez, Firelei; Acevedo-Yates, Carla; Godfrey, Mark; and Russell, Legacy (2022). Norr, David (ed.). Firelei Báez: to breathe full and free. New York:
Gregory R. Miller & Co. p. 31.
ISBN978-1-941366-38-7.
OCLC1349465849.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
^Wimberly, Dexter, Ossei-Mensah, Larry (2019). Coffee, Rhum, Sugar & Gold : a Postcolonial Paradox. Petaluma, CA:
Cameron + Company. p. 80.
ISBN978-1-944903-76-3.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
^Golden, Thelma; Respini, Eva; Báez, Firelei; Acevedo-Yates, Carla; Godfrey, Mark; and Russell, Legacy (2022). Norr, David (ed.). Firelei Báez: to breathe full and free. New York:
Gregory R. Miller & Co. p. 38.
ISBN978-1-941366-38-7.
OCLC1349465849.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
^Schoonmaker, Trevor (2023). Spirit in the land: Exhibition, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, 2023. Durham, North Carolina: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.
ISBN978-0-938989-45-5.
^Golden, Thelma; Respini, Eva; Báez, Firelei; Acevedo-Yates, Carla; Godfrey, Mark; and Russell, Legacy (2022). Norr, David (ed.). Firelei Báez: to breathe full and free. New York:
Gregory R. Miller & Co. p. 30.
ISBN978-1-941366-38-7.
OCLC1349465849.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
^Báez, Firelei (2022).
Firelei Báez : to breathe full and free. David Norr, Carla Acevedo-Yates, Mark Godfrey, Thelma Golden, Eva Respini, Legacy Russell, Gregory R. Miller & Co, James Cohan Gallery, Distributed Art Publishers, Conti Tipocolor, Conti Tipocolor. New York.
ISBN978-1-941366-38-7.
OCLC1349465849.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)