Bibiana Suárez

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In my art I investigate the convergence between race, politics, and culture as it applies to Puerto Ricans and other Latinx in the U.S. My departure is always the lens that is my personal experience. In the early years, I was concerned with identity questions and my uprootedness from la Isla. Later, I explored Puerto Rico's ambivalent political status and the symbiotic relationship between assimilation and acculturation. Most recently, I have been exploring various aspects of Latinx people's impact on the U.S. popular culture and political landscape.

Bibiana Suárez was born and raised in Puerto Rico but has resided in Chicago since 1980. She has a BFA (1984) and an MFA (1989) in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently a professor in The Art School at DePaul University. Suárez has exhibited in the United States as well as in Puerto Rico and Mexico. De:Lata (To Give Us Away) is her most recent solo exhibition on view at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture in Chicago, March 11- October 23, 2022. Her installation project Memoria (Memory), was exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center in 2011 (Chicago),at Space Gallery in 2018 (Pittsburg), and at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico in 2019 (San Juan). Suárez has participated in numerous group exhibitions and has also been the recipient of several awards including three Illinois Arts Council Individual Visual Artist Fellowship Awards (1991, 1994, 1999), an Arts Midwest/NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship (1992) and was the inaugural recipient of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture’s (University of Chicago) Artist in Residence Fellowship in 2003-2004. In autumn 2011 Suárez was a faculty fellow in the Center for Latino Research at DePaul.