NADA Miami 2022
Cielo Félix-Hernández | a place to rest my palmsBooth #4.07 with Sargent’s Daughters
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.