Cielo Félix-Hernández | a place to rest my palms

Booth #4.07

Ice Palace Studios, Miami, FL

November 30 – December 3, 2022

Sargent’s Daughters is pleased to present a place to rest my palms, a solo presentation of paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Cielo Félix-Hernández.  Working in oil on canvas with satin-fringed borders, Félix-Hernández has produced a new body of work specifically for NADA Miami, marking her art fair debut.  

The “palms” evoked in the title of the presentation have a dual meaning: they reference both the branches of plantain trees that dot Félix-Hernández’s homeland of Puerto Rico, as well as the ideal of embodied respite for the artist and her community.  Plantain fronds, groups of chickens, and stylized transfemme figures are all depicted performing rituals of ease and creativity.  Rendered in a passion fruit palette of saturated, sour greens and yellows, the works reference nostalgic details from the artist’s life – her mother’s first car, the Powerpuff Girls, her grandmother’s garden.  These talismans of familial history offer a sense of care and protection that extends beyond the figures and into the landscape itself.

For Félix-Hernández, the concepts embedded in a place to rest my palms are deeply spiritual. Rain and ocean water connect bodies across generations to the earth, linking the artist to her Taíno ancestors. As she writes, “Soft kisses from the sky are rain drops, landing and absorbing themselves into the concrete-ground, the ocean, and the power of queer and trans people convening at coasts and beaches, where liberation takes form through community.” Warm, ripe, and juicy, these paintings evoke euphoria through transition, granting viewers glimpses of a transcendent space.

Cielo Félix-Hernández (b.1998, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico) is a Puerto-Rican transdisciplinary artist, living and working in Brooklyn, New York.  Working primarily in oil paint, Félix-Hernández depicts figures who author their own narratives, constructed out of familiar Boricua and Caribbean iconographies.

Félix-Hernández received her BFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.  Recent group exhibitions include Ojos del Perro Azul, Marinaro, New York, NY (2022); Nine Lives, Fortnight Institute, New York, NY (2021); Visions and Nightmares, Simone Subal Gallery, curated by Baseera Khan, New York, NY (2021); Flame Tree, REGULARNORMAL, curated by Bony Ramirez, New York, NY (2021); I’ll Make You Sorry, curated by LaNia Sproles, Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2020); documento, Embajada, San Juan, Puerto Rico (2020); My Flannel Knickers Sargent's Daughters, New York, NY (2020); and Dynasty, curated by Amy Goldrich, Christopher K. Ho, Omar Lopez-Chahoud, and Sara Reisman at PS122 Gallery, New York, NY (2019).  She had her first New York solo exhibition nieta at Sargent’s Daughters in January 2022, which was reviewed by Artnet, Artsy and Platform Art. In October 2022, Félix-Hernández will participate in her first museum exhibition at El Museo del Barrio in New York, NY through March 2023 and is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the Silver Arts Projects, New York, NY. She is represented by Sargent’s Daughters.