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Lot Essay
Standing over eight feet tall, a majestic woman steadily meets our gaze from within an elaborate, mirrored frame. In this monumental work, titled For Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité Bonheur (a reconstituted echo, to be spoken, complete), Dominican-born, New York-based artist Firelei Báez pays homage to the first Empress of Haiti, who was notable for her humanitarian actions and compassion towards French prisoners during the Haitian Revolution. Installed directly on the floor to give the impression of a woman glimpsed as she looks in the mirror, the work entices the viewer into an act of empathy – to imagine, perhaps, that what they see is their own reflection. Rich in formal, narrative and symbolic imagery, the work exemplifies Báez’s intricate and intimate explorations of the legacy of inherited histories, and her creative re-imagining of possible futures.
Painted in 2019, For Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité Bonheur… was exhibited that same year as part of the artist’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands, at the FKA Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam. The painting formed part of an immersive gallery installation that drew from the artist’s research on the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). Báez enveloped the main gallery and its entrances in royal-blue plastic tarpaulin of the kind that is often used to provide emergency shelter and refuge in times of disaster. Viewers passed through swags of tattered and shredded blue plastic that had been interspersed with foliage, as though they were about to enter an abandoned wilderness, overrun by nature. Once inside, however, the blue was revealed to be exuberantly patterned with an abundance of delicate white drawings and perforations. Within the cocoon of blue plastic, dappled by atmospheric coloured light, could be found two paintings, one of which was the present work.
The mystical atmosphere Baez created within the installation is reflected and contained within the painting itself. Rendered in acrylic and oil paint, the woman’s silhouette is decorated with celestial-like patterns in ultramarine, scarlet, violet and olive green; from her ears hang elaborate feathered earrings. Surrounded by a glowing magenta wash, the colors have a dream-like effervescence. Such a distinctive palette is an important part of Báez’s work. As the scholar Marta Fernández Campa has noted recently, it is a way to assign the work an even greater depth of meaning, “the vibrant chromatic range of Báez’s artwork expands its reach beyond the often-stereotypical representations of a colorful Caribbean that remains common in media and touristic portrayals of the region. The use of color in the paintings is disruptive of any definitional limitations and conveys instead a generative energy” (“Fluid Forms of Memory and Power in the Work of Firelei Báez,” in Firelei Báez: Trust Over Memory, exh. cat., Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, 2023, p. 38).
For Báez, painting is a way of retelling history to include or reinstate stories that have been overlooked. It is hard to look away from this Haitian royal, who defies her disappearance from Western narratives with her mesmeric, fantastical appearance and her bold gaze. As Báez has said, the dialogue between painting and viewer can be a powerful tool for empathy. “Materiality for me is the way to navigate the presence of a viewer to the work. And as inviting as an illusionistic painting can be, it is like trompe l'oeil, the things that look like real things in the world are just meant to get you closer to the question. The thing that's meant to be more factual or to get you anchored in the moment and remind you that you are a being in the presence another being, of another matter, is the thing that starts all the paintings” (quoted in T. Akers, “It's a process of following your curiosity:” Firelei Báez on her exhibitions in Los Angeles and Vancouver’, The Art Newspaper, 19 November 2024).
Painted in 2019, For Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité Bonheur… was exhibited that same year as part of the artist’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands, at the FKA Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam. The painting formed part of an immersive gallery installation that drew from the artist’s research on the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). Báez enveloped the main gallery and its entrances in royal-blue plastic tarpaulin of the kind that is often used to provide emergency shelter and refuge in times of disaster. Viewers passed through swags of tattered and shredded blue plastic that had been interspersed with foliage, as though they were about to enter an abandoned wilderness, overrun by nature. Once inside, however, the blue was revealed to be exuberantly patterned with an abundance of delicate white drawings and perforations. Within the cocoon of blue plastic, dappled by atmospheric coloured light, could be found two paintings, one of which was the present work.
The mystical atmosphere Baez created within the installation is reflected and contained within the painting itself. Rendered in acrylic and oil paint, the woman’s silhouette is decorated with celestial-like patterns in ultramarine, scarlet, violet and olive green; from her ears hang elaborate feathered earrings. Surrounded by a glowing magenta wash, the colors have a dream-like effervescence. Such a distinctive palette is an important part of Báez’s work. As the scholar Marta Fernández Campa has noted recently, it is a way to assign the work an even greater depth of meaning, “the vibrant chromatic range of Báez’s artwork expands its reach beyond the often-stereotypical representations of a colorful Caribbean that remains common in media and touristic portrayals of the region. The use of color in the paintings is disruptive of any definitional limitations and conveys instead a generative energy” (“Fluid Forms of Memory and Power in the Work of Firelei Báez,” in Firelei Báez: Trust Over Memory, exh. cat., Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, 2023, p. 38).
For Báez, painting is a way of retelling history to include or reinstate stories that have been overlooked. It is hard to look away from this Haitian royal, who defies her disappearance from Western narratives with her mesmeric, fantastical appearance and her bold gaze. As Báez has said, the dialogue between painting and viewer can be a powerful tool for empathy. “Materiality for me is the way to navigate the presence of a viewer to the work. And as inviting as an illusionistic painting can be, it is like trompe l'oeil, the things that look like real things in the world are just meant to get you closer to the question. The thing that's meant to be more factual or to get you anchored in the moment and remind you that you are a being in the presence another being, of another matter, is the thing that starts all the paintings” (quoted in T. Akers, “It's a process of following your curiosity:” Firelei Báez on her exhibitions in Los Angeles and Vancouver’, The Art Newspaper, 19 November 2024).