Home Artist Programs Supported Artists Lilliam Nieves

Lilliam Nieves

Bayamón, Puerto Rico

Beauty Queen XI (brassier) is a high contrast vertical illustration of a nude woman standing on top of a globe, leaning forward to bite a bra held in her hands. Brushy cloud illustrations frame her.

Beauty Queen XI (brassier)

2023

Beauty Queen VI is a high-contrast illustration of a topless woman with a sarong around her waist. She stands on top of a globe, holding a sword, wearing a crown with a black bar over her eyes. She is haloed with a large star, and lipsticks fall around her like bombs.

Beauty Queen VI

2020

Beauty Queen IV is a high contrast illustration over wood grain of a woman in a bikini with combat boots standing on top of a globe. One hand on her hip, she holds a corded drill in the other.

Beauty Queen IV

2019

To be a disaster, to be diaspora, to be a state, to be an island, to be Puerto Rican is a film still of a woman wearing a bikini top decorated Puerto Rico and US flag motifs. She stretches her elbows up with her hands behind her head with eyes closed. Her arms and hands are smeared with white paint.

To be a disaster, to be diaspora, to be a state, to be an island, to be Puerto Rican

2018

Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.

About Lilliam Nieves

Lilliam Nieves, a Puerto Rican woman with medium light skin and long, dark curly hair looks with a direct gaze and wears oversize beige cat-eye glasses.

Lilliam Nieves is an interdisciplinary artist based in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Nieves has received numerous international residencies and recognitions for her mixed media, installation, and performance art. This includes being a 2018 Artist-in-Residence at The Studios at MASS MoCA. Nieves uses a variety of materials to manifest her investigation of the connections between women’s bodies and capitalism. Her work centers body justice and questions stereotypes of beauty and femininity by creating and documenting beauty rituals of excessive and incomprehensible nature. Nieves has a Master of Fine Arts in New Media from Donau-Universität Krems, in association with Transart Institute (Austria / Berlin / New York), and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from La Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico, with a concentration in Art Education.

Program Participation

Joan Mitchell Center Residency, 2024

Website / Social Links

“ In my artwork, I look for a dialogue between the discursivity of what society and media normalize as beautiful and the other, which is the oppressive face of the physical and emotional burden that we as women have to endure.”

Related Journal Entries

Lilliam Nieves, a Puerto Rican woman with medium light skin and black and grey curly hair, leans over a desk writing on brown paper. She wears chunky glasses, a black top and has several tattoos.

In the Studio: Lilliam Nieves

“I use different materials to manifest the connection between women’s bodies and...

A staggered grid of 37 artworks of diverse aesthetics and media.

Announcing the 2024 Joan Mitchell Center Artists-in-Residence

We are pleased to announce the diverse and distinguished group of artists that w...