Firelei Báez
Congratulations to Firelei Báez on the opening of IMMERSION INTO COMPOUNDED TIME AND THE PAINTINGS OF FIRELEI BÁEZ, on view from June 7 throgh September 1 at the Mennello Museum of American Art in Orlando, Florida. The museum will host a members preview and opening reception on June 7, from 5:30 - 8 PM, followed by an artist talk and book signing on Saturday, June 8 from 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM.
IMMERSION INTO COMPOUNDED TIME AND THE PAINTINGS OF FIRELEI BÁEZ will explore Firelei Báez’s investigations on the visibility and the construction of complex cultural identities within the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora and how these notions are perceived in today’s global world. Her large-scale and intricate portraits of influential individuals and mythical goddesses of Afro-Caribbean history create a contemporary narrative of a woman’s life, embracing the past, and staking her place in a universal future.
Báez is best known through her extraordinary paintings of lush landscaped-figures, intricately patterned tignons, and otherworldly bodies with striking eyes. Here, she considers the reality of ones current social and the historic construction of cultural self in America. These complex, intersectional bodies and symbols alongside large-scale portraits are painted in vibrant, swirling colors, which intermingle time and character. For Báez, “identity is malleable, negotiated,” and given strength by the female body and mythology of her being.
IMMERSION INTO COMPOUNDED TIME AND THE PAINTINGS OF FIRELEI BÁEZ is curated by Katherine Navarro, Associate Curator of Education at the Mennello Museum of American Art. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog with curatorial essay, and poem by Koleka Putuma, which is available for purchase with full Spanish translation.