Firelei Báez, “Untitled (Temple of Time),” 2020, oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas, Wilks Family Collection, Courtesy the Artist and Hauser & Wirth, New York, Photo: Phoebe d’Heurle, © Firelei Báez
At the heart of artist Firelei Báez‘s work is a never-ending sense of energy and life, almost like a pulse, beating through the themes the painter passionately expresses and the history many long to forget. In her work, the artist subverts the docile, effeminate qualities that bright colors, botanical designs, and even the female figure itself have been assigned, turning them into challenging motifs to take space and tell stories about gender, race, and colonialism.
“My works are propositions, meant to create alternate pasts and potential futures, questioning history and culture in order to provide a space for reassessing the present,” the Dominican-born, New York-based artist says in a statement. Báez is now the subject of a mid-career retrospective at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which features over 40 pieces—from paintings and drawings to an installation—spanning two decades of work.
Born in 1981, the multidisciplinary creative has long devoted herself to the inherited narratives of the Caribbean, particularly the African diaspora, whose life continues to be shaped by the claws of colonialism in the region. And yet, despite touching on a specific issue of one particular region, the plight seems to be universal.
“I’m purposely opening the work so that it’s able to function like a Rorschach,” Báez told The Art Newspaper. “It’s hyper-specific to a geography, but also hyper-specific to viewer experience. I’m always so excited when someone from Iceland, for instance, who has a shared history of colonization or environmental change or of migration that we would have in the Caribbean, can have a crossroads experience. It’s something I couldn’t have dictated.”
Taking cues from folklore, anthropology, fantasy, and even historical records, Báez has a unique approach to mixed media. In her layered compositions, her choice of background has a conversation with the pictorial elements on top—no element is just there to serve the aesthetics. The aesthetics are, above all, a tool for taking space and catching the eye to move the narrative forward. Many artists could paint a wave—even a very realistic one—but what makes Báez one of the most gifted artists of her generation is the way she can tell consequential stories on a canvas. In one piece, a massive wave of oil and acrylic paint hits and wrecks the floor plan of the United States Marine Hospital.
In Báez’s work, what could simply pass for portraits are also doors to the shared experience of womanhood. Vast and nuanced, they evoke the feeling that each person can contain multitudes. But it’s also how these multitudes are in continuous struggle with circumstances set by another entity, whether it’s nature, politics, culture, or history. For all the abstract explorations her subjects contain, they remain profoundly and vividly human as they, sometimes defiantly, sometimes puzzlingly, look right back at the viewer.
“When we look at each other’s eyes, there’s so much that’s held within that,” Báez explained to Montecristo Magazine. “There’s expressiveness, there’s spirit, there’s emotion, that go beyond the microaggressions of reading someone down to the width of their nose.”
“Firelei is a storyteller,” says Eva Respini, deputy director and director of curatorial programs at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the exhibition’s curator. “She’s a historian and a time-traveler and a myth maker.” Báez’s self-titled retrospective is currently on view at Vancouver Art Gallery through March 16, 2025.
To stay up to date with the artist’s work, follow Firelei Báez on Instagram.
Firelei Báez is the subject of a mid-career retrospective at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which features over 40 pieces—from paintings and drawings to an installation—spanning two decades of work.
Firelei Báez, “Untitled (United States Marine Hospital),” 2019, oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchase with funds from the International Director’s Council in honor of Carolyn Wade, with additional funds from the Young Collectors Council, 2020, Courtesy the Artist and Hauser & Wirth, New York, Photo: Phoebe d’Heurle, © Firelei Báez
Firelei Báez, “A Drexcyen chronocommons (To win the war you fought it sideways),” 2019 (detail), two paintings, hand-painted wooden frame, perforated tarp, printed mesh, handmade paper over found objects, plants, books, Oman incense and palo santo, The Joyner/ Giuffrida Collection, Courtesy the Artist and Hauser & Wirth, New York, Photo: Phoebe d’Heurle, © Firelei Báez
In her work, the artist turns bright colors and botanical designs into challenging motifs to take space and tell stories about gender, race, and colonialism.
Installation view of Firelei Báez, “A Drexcyen chronocommons (To win the war you fought it sideways),” 2019, at James Cohan, New York, 2019, The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection, Courtesy the Artist and Hauser & Wirth, New York, Photo: Phoebe d’Heurle. © Firelei Báez
Firelei Báez, “Untitled (Les tables de geographie reduites en un jeu de cartes),” 2022, oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas, Collection of Deborah Beckmann and Jacob Kotzubei, Courtesy the Artist and Hauser & Wirth, New York, Photo: Jackie Furtado, © Firelei Báez
“My works are propositions, meant to create alternate pasts and potential futures, questioning history and culture in order to provide a space for reassessing the present,” says Báez.
Firelei Báez, “Fire wood pretending to be fire, February 12, 2012,” 2013, acrylic and gouache on Yupo paper, Collection of Carol Sutton Lewis and William M. Lewis, Jr., Courtesy the Artist and Hauser & Wirth, New York, Photo: Adam Reich, © Firelei Báez
Firelei Báez, “A Drexcyen chronocommons (To win the war you fought it sideways),” 2019 (detail), two paintings, hand-painted wooden frame, perforated tarp, printed mesh, handmade paper over found objects, plants, books, Oman incense and palo santo, The Joyner/ Giuffrida Collection, Courtesy the Artist and Hauser & Wirth, New York, Photo: Phoebe d’Heurle, © Firelei Báez
Taking cues from folklore, anthropology, fantasy, and even historical records, Báez has a unique approach to mixed media.
Installation view of Firelei Báez, “Can I Pass? Introducing the Paper Bag to the Fan Test for the Month of July” (detail) 2011, in Firelei Báez, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2024, gouache, ink, and graphite on panel, Courtesy the Artist and Hauser & Wirth, New York, Photo: Mel Taing, © Firelei Báez
Firelei Báez, “Adjusting the Moon (The right to non-imperative clarities): Waxing,” 2019–20, oil and acrylic on panel, Private Collection, Courtesy the Artist and Hauser & Wirth, New York, Photo: Christopher Burke Studios, © Firelei Báez
Báez’s self-titled retrospective is currently on view at Vancouver Art Gallery through March 16, 2025.
Firelei Báez, “Truth was the bridge (or an emancipatory healing),” 2024, digital prints on vinyl mesh, Courtesy of the Artist and Hauser & Wirth, New York. Photo: Vancouver Art Gallery
Exhibition Information:
Firelei Báez
November 3, 2024 – March 16, 2025
Vancouver Art Gallery in Vancouver, Canada
750 Hornby St, Vancouver, BC V6Z 2H7
Firelei Báez: Instagram