Firelei Báez is interested in how written language and printed images reveal the social, political, and psychological ideologies of their time and how those aspects may or may not be repeated in our time. Her artistic process typically begins with smaller works such as these. She instinctively creates clouds of scenes within and over older texts. She draws out people or events bringing misplaced experiences to the forefront of a new catalog of history.
Báez mines pages of historic books that have been deemed irrelevant or inappropriate, to highlight and depict what or who is missing from the pages, whose stories are not told. These archival documents from Works Progress Administration buildings were found in a second-hand bookstore while Báez was working and traveling in New Orleans. Here, pages are collaged with her ciguapa and photographs of protest. They rally together against the political and social authority of today, even against the history of the land in New Orleans where people were bought and sold.
Kavi Gupta, Washington, Chicago, IL
May 29, 2020
Firelei Báez, Pine's Eye Profiles
| Talbot Rice Gallery
| Talbot Rice Gallery, Curator James Clegg
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March 18, 2020
Art reviews: Pine’s Eye, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh | Julijonas Urbonas, Collective City Dome, Edinburgh
| The Scotsman
| Susan Mansfield
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2018
Firelei Báez
| Kavi Gupta
| Kavi Gupta
2019
Immersion Into Compounded Time and th Paintings of Firelei Báez
| The Menello Museum of American Art
| The Menello Museum of American Art
