Laurena Finéus, born and raised in Ottawa, Canada, graduated from Columbia University’s MFA program (2024) and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Ottawa (2020). Her work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum (2025), Hudson River Museum (2024), CCCADI (2024), Fridman Gallery (2024), G101 (2022), the Ottawa Art Gallery (2021), and Art Mûr (2019). Finéus has received several prestigious honors, including the Helen Frankenthaler Fund (2023), the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant (2022–23), and the Saunderson Prize (2024). She currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.

Finéus’s art explores the migration crisis, particularly the Haitian migration experience since the 1980s. She draws connections between the Maroons—Black fugitives who escaped slavery—and contemporary migrants, focusing on shared desires for freedom and bright futures. As the first Black freedom fighters in the Americas, Maroons defined Maronnage as a Black geography, offering an alternative life and redefined spatiality through self-determination.

In her works, Finéus depicts ‘Zones of Refuge,’ regions where Maroons thrived, drawing from landscapes such as mountains, swamps, and forests. Her process collapses histories across time and space, aiming to center a neglected Black sovereign past and future. She incorporates fiction and world-building to reclaim the Haitian migrant imagination while commenting on the absurdity of its current struggles.

Finéus often reflects on Haiti’s complex geography, marked by tectonic, political, and historical failures that may seem like a curse. Yet, she sees truth within this disorder. Her paintings emerge from staining and layering, drawing from archival images of migratory paths such as Guantanamo Bay and the Darien Gap, alongside her own travel photography.

Informed by Edouard Glissant’s Rhizomatic theory, Finéus views identity as fluid and constantly evolving, like plant roots. This is reflected in her intricate linework and entwined roots, blurring the line between drawing and painting. Natural elements like fire, water, and land reinforce themes of transformation, using a palette reminiscent of the earth. Oil, ink, acrylic, and occasionally, soil or mica add depth and texture.

Finéus’s exploration of migration and sacrifice reflects on the emotional displacements that shape the diaspora. Her work portrays liminal landscapes where hope and faith drive the aspirations for a better future, even amidst hardship.