Firelei Baez

âHer language for exploring [history] is at once serious and exuberant.â â"Siddhartha Mitter, New York TimesPublished with Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Over the last 15 years, Firelei B¡ez has created artwork that delves into the historical narratives of the Atlantic Basin. She draws on the disciplines of anthropology, geography, folklore, fantasy, science fiction and social history to unsettle categories of race, gender and nationality in her paintings, drawings and installations. Her exuberant paintings feature finely wrought, complex and layered uses of pattern, motifs and saturated hues. Primarily centering women of color, her works incorporate regal fashion styles and decorative elements as well as defiant gazes in order to assert their authority. In advance of her North American traveling solo exhibition, this lushly illustrated book offers audiences an opportunity to gain a holistic understanding of B¡ezâs complex body of work, cementing her as one of today's most important artists. Partly inspired by artistsâ sketchbooks, the monograph includes full-spread reproductions of the artistâs preparatory sketches alongside annotations, source images and close-up details of her artworks. Numerous scholars contribute thoughtful, reverent texts, weighing in on B¡ezâs indelible mark on the contemporary art landscape. The Dominican Republicâ"born artist Firelei B¡ez (born 1981) reworks visual references drawn from diasporic histories in order to imagine new possibilities for the future, overlaying figuration, symbolic imagery and abstract gesture onto large-scale reproductions of found maps and documents. She then populates these representations with hybrid forms composed of folkloric and literary references, textile patterns and plant life.