Laurena Finéus – Crown Heights

Laurena Finéus is a Haitian-Canadian visual artist based in New York, NY and is an MFA Candidate at Columbia University (2024) . She was born and raised in Ottawa, ON. In her practice, Finéus has been concerned with representations of black geographies, maroon ideologies, and migratory patterns through painterly, figurative, and imagined landscapes.  

She is a graduate from the University of Ottawa with a Bachelor of Fine Arts . Her work has been exhibited at Jenkins Johnson (2023), Wallach Art Gallery (2023), G101(2022), the Ottawa Art Gallery (2021), and Art mûr (2019) among others. She was the recipient of the Helen Frankenthaler fund (2023), the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant (2022) , the Ottawa Arts Council IBPOC Emerging Artist Award (2022), and the Ineke Harmina Standish Memorial (2019).  

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Laurena Finéus, conducted a series of five wellness-based community workshops in partnership with Brooklyn migrant organizations Haitian Americans United for Progress and Diaspora Community Services.

Using creative tools like painting, drawing, journaling, and hand-dyeing, workshop participants focused on intergenerational healing, the power of self-actualization, and reconnection to land practices. Laurena collaborated with trauma therapist Phadia Jean-Pierre and community healer Linda Duverné to create a sense of rootedness and community undeterred by the dissociation of displacement. Laurena is now creating a series of her own paintings, which respond to the art and dialogue created in her workshops. She is also inviting guests to participate in a collaborative hand-dyeing activation.