Firelei Baez was born in 1980 in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominician Republic, and currently lives and works in New York. Baez is interested in how culture and identity are shaped by inherited histories. Her work reveals the incomplete nature of our communal stories, constructing more egalitarian social narratives, so a more equitable future might emerge. Portraiture is a key aspect of Baez’s work. She sees the human body as the most direct link between artist, viewer, and subject. Across the mediums of painting, sculpture, drawing and installation, she layers strong, confident, imaginative portraits of Afrodiasporic figures over physical and conceptual echoes of the past.

Recent solo exhibitions include Joy Out of Fire, The Studio Museum Harlem, New York (2018); Firelei Baez, Kavi Gupta, Chicago (2018); Firelei Baez, Bloodlines, the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburg (2017), and Peréz Art Museum of Miami (2015); Vessel of Genealogies, DePaul Art Museum, Chicago (2017), and Tarble Arts Center, Charleston (2016). Recent group exhibitions include participation in the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2018), Love Thy Neighbor, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (2017), Future Generations Art Prize, PinchukArtCenter, and later to Palazzo Contarini Polignac, Venice Biennale (both 2017). Baez’s work is included in a number of collections, including Peréz Art Museum, Miami; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and BNY Mellon Art Collection, Pittsburgh, amongst others.