Bio:
Drawing on historical, political and personal narratives, my paintings are figurative compositions that conjure the complexity of the Afro-Latinx experience. The figures in my work inhabit a state of vulnerability that often encourages the viewer to question their positions on class, race, and geography. I immigrated to the United States in 2002 from the Dominican Republic. 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.
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
Raelis Rayson Vasquez Estrella
Born: 1995 in Mao Valverde, Dominican Republic
Lives and works in NJ/NYC
EDUCATION
2019 - 2021: MFA, Painting and Drawing, Columbia University, NY
2016 - 2018: BFA, Painting and Drawing, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
2017: Monte Castello Painting and Studio Practice, Umbria Italy
2013- 2015 Associates in Liberal Arts, High Honors, Studio Arts, Art History, Middlesex County College, NJ
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
2021
Estamos Bien: La Trienal 20/21, El Museo del Barrio, New York NY
Shattered Glass, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Contemporary Domesticity, Taymour Grahne, London, UK
Frieze NYC, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Solo Exhibition, Sakhile&Me Gallery, Frankfurt Germany
SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2020
“Como Nosotros Somos” New Image Gallery, West Hollywood, CA (two Person -with Tiffany Alfonseca)
“Celebrate Longevity” Superposition Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (two Person- with John Rivas)
2019
“Both at Once” Latchkey Gallery, NY, NY (two-person- with Kevin M. Demery)
“Stateless” Baby Blue Gallery, Chicago, IL (two-person- with John Rivas)
2017
"It Takes All Kind" Studio Oh!, Chicago IL (solo)
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2020
Art Basel Miami Beach, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Art Basel OVR, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
“Building Narratives” Monti 8, Latina, Italy
“Figurative Summer” Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
“Everyday is Sunday” UTA Artist Space, Beverly Hills, CA
“The Cookout: Kinfolk and Other Intimacies” MoCADA, Brooklyn, NY
“One Way Ticket” Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
“Thy Neighbor” 1-54 Contemporary African Art Far, Latchkey Gallery, New York, NY
“TB2P” Cantica Tabacuru Gallery, New York, NY
“Parallel Realities & Unpopular Truths” Superposition Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
“The Living Room Kitchen” The Andrew Freedman Home, Bronx, NY
2019
“Syn-co-pa-tion” Ace Hotel\The Tenth Magazine, Chicago, IL
“Breaching the Margins” Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI
“Both at Once” Latchkey Gallery, New York, NY
“Stateless” Baby Blue Gallery, Chicago, IL
“Remnants of Things Left Behind” Band of Vices, Los Angeles, CA
“Salon!” Rozsa Center for the Performing Art, Houghton, MI
“Don’t Be Scurred: Pathways to Liberation” Hairpin Arts Center, Chicago, IL
“Salon!” Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts, Houghton, MI
2018- “XL Catlin Art Prize,” San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
“XL Catlin Art Prize,” Linda Warren Projects, Chicago, IL
“XL Catlin Art Prize,” New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
“The Latin American Contemporary Fine Art Competition” Agora Gallery, New York, NY
“Interiors”, Happy Gallery, Chicago, IL
"The Art of Awareness," Fulton Street Market, Chicago, IL
"A Remembrance of Beauty," Moody Fellowship Hall, Chicago, IL
"SAIC BFA Show," SAIC Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL
"Journey to America," Highland Park Art Center, Chicago, IL
"Black Love Matters," William Hill Gallery, Chicago, IL
"Buy Art Not Vices" NYCH Gallery, Chicago, IL
"Rompiendo Barrera" Carlos and Dominguez Fine Arts Gallery, Chicago, IL
2017
"Black Love Matters", SouthSide Arts Center, Chicago, IL
"Mostradarte" The International Centre for the Arts, Monte Castello di Vibio, Umbria, Italy
"Altering Realities" Fulton Street Collective, Chicago, IL
"Taking Shape" Studio Oh! Chicago, IL
2016
"Understanding Time" Ballroom Projects, Chicago, IL
"ArtBash" Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, IL
2015
The Community Open House & Expo, 50-Year Anniversary Exhibition
2014
Perth Amboy Bi-Annual Exhibition. Perth Amboy, NJ
Annual International Summer Exhibition. Highland Park, NJ
2013
ACT-SO NAACP New Jersey Painting Competition. Newark, NJ
ACT-SO NAACP New Jersey Drawing Competition. Newark, NJ
GRANTS/AWARDS (Grants/Fellowships, Awards/Honors, Residencies, etc.)
2019
Mare Residency, SunSpot Studios with MICA, Baltimore, MD
2018
Odyssey Travel Grant, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2017
John W. Kurtich Foundation Scholarship , School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2016
SAIC Distinguished Scholarship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
SAIC Grant, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2015
Art Department Awards for Academic Excellence, Middlesex County College
2013
ACT-SO NAACP New Jersey Silver Medal in Painting
ACT-SO NAACP New Jersey Silver Medal in Drawing
Art Student of the Year, School of North Brunswick
Talks and Panel Discussions
2020
Panel Discussion with Schrezade Garcia and Toy Peralta, “Afro Latinos En Arte” at SVA, New York, NY
2018
Today at Apple, "Modern Meets Classic" Key Note/ Live Art, Chicago, IL
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).