Raelis Vasquez

Raelis Vasquez received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018 before receiving his Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University in 2021.

The artist had solo exhibitions at PM/AM in London (2023), Sakhile&Me in Frankfurt (2021), and De Buck Gallery in Saint-Paul-de-Vence (2021) as well as two-artist shows at New Image Gallery in West Hollywood with Tiffany Alfonseca (2020) and at Superposition Gallery in Los Angeles with John Rivas (2020). Recent institutional group exhibitions include shows at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers (2023), the Rebuild Foundation in Chicago (2022), the Eastville Museum in Sag Harbor (2022), the Kunstraum Potsdam in Berlin (2021), the Museo del Barrio in New York (2021), and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art in Brooklyn (2020). Recent group shows at galleries include exhibitions at Bode Gallery in Berlin (2023), James Fuentes Gallery in New York (2022), Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in Los Angeles (2021), Jenkins Johnson Gallery in San Francisco (2020), and Superposition Gallery in Los Angeles (2020). Raelis Vasquez’ work has also been presented at art fairs such as Art Basel, Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Cologne, Dallas Art Fair, Meca Art Fair, Frieze Los Angeles, and The Armory Show.

Raelis Vasquez’ work is part of the permanent collections of the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in Santa Barbara, and The Newark Museum of Art in Newark.

Artist Statement

"Today, I feel an overpowering responsibility (or calling) to the arts and towards my Black, Latinx and immigrant communities. I paint using oils in a naturalistic manner as a means to give clarity to the subjects I present. My devotion is to the accurate representation of the convoluted histories of the Dominican Republic. I am aiming to highlight an allegorical narrative that presents the psychological states of the figures in my works while presenting a window to the viewer of their daily lives."