Artist Bio
Raelis Vasquez (b. 1995, Mao Valverde, Dominican Republic) is a painter and ceramicist whose work explores belonging, memory, and the lived experiences of Afro-Latinx communities. Rooted in the cultural rhythms of the Dominican Republic and shaped by his experience as an immigrant, his practice bridges personal and collective histories through both image and object.
Working across painting and ceramics, Vasquez approaches making as a form of care and cultural preservation. His paintings draw from personal photographs, family archives, and observations of communities in the Dominican diaspora, capturing intimate everyday moments with gestural brushwork and a nuanced use of color. His figures, often family members and community subjects, embody vulnerability and resilience, offering reflection on identity, race, and migration.
In his ceramic practice, Vasquez engages the figure through portrait busts as a site of embodied memory and presence. These works move beyond likeness and position the human form as a vessel for cultural inscription and lived experience. Through material sensitivity and surface intervention, he considers how identity is constructed and perceived, using clay to register gesture, time, and the complexities of diasporic subjectivity.
Across both mediums, Vasquez reinterprets traditions of portraiture and figuration, centering stories rooted in the Caribbean and its diasporas. His work considers how memory is held within people, objects, and shared spaces, while affirming the complexity and dignity of everyday life.
He earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Columbia University. Vasquez has exhibited at the Newark Museum of Art, Kunstraum Potsdam, Haus Kunst Mitte, Pérez Art Museum Miami, El Museo del Barrio, and the Museum of Modern Art Cartagena, Colombia.