A multipronged analysis of the Dominican American artist's cartographic palimpsests In her monumental paintings and installations, the Dominican American artist Firelei Baez (born 1981) creates images bursting with symbols from folktales, colonial occupation, legendary creatures and revolutions. She paints images on top of maps, book pages and found ephemera that combine abstraction and figuration, personal perspectives with grand historical narratives and Caribbean mythology with science fiction. This colorful publication serves as an introduction to Baez's work. The artist discusses how she interrogates powerful concepts such as truth and history throughout her practice. Special attention is paid to her "palimpsests," paintings on top of colonial maps or construction plans for colonial architecture, both of which represent the establishment's notion of objectivity. Inspired by Baez's works, poet Warsan Shire and author Katrine Rasmussen Kielsen contribute texts considering the legacy of colonialism.
Reviews
The maps, too, are a fantasy, advancing the fiction that we could treat the earth as an object to be measured, cut up, and extracted from without consequences. -- AX Mina * Hyperallergic *



Book Information
ISBN 9788793659711
Author Firelei Baez
Format Paperback
Page Count 92
Imprint Louisiana
Publisher Louisiana