Bibiana Suárez is currently a Professor of Art and Vincent de Paul Professor in the Department of Art, Media and Design at DePaul University (Chicago). Suárez was born and raised in Puerto Rico, but has resided in Chicago since 1980. She has a BFA (1984) and an MFA (1989) in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Suárez has exhibited in the United States as well as in Puerto Rico and Mexico. Her solo exhibitions include Memoria(Memory) at the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2011-2012); Domino/Dominó at El Museo del Barrio (1998) in New York and the Illinois Arts Gallery (1999) in Chicago; De Pico a Pico (Beak to Beak - Face to Face) at Sazama Gallery, Chicago (1993); Island Adrift: The Puerto Rican Identity in Exile at Taller Puertorriqueño in Philadelphia (1993); In Search of an Island also at Sazama Gallery (1991) and A Grafito at the Art Students league in San Juan, Puerto Rico (1985).
Among her group exhibitions are: 1898: DIWA Arts, Rene J. Marquez, Maria Martinez-Cañas and Bibiana Suárez at the Bronx Museum of the Arts (1998) and Puerto Rican Equation at Hunter College (1998) in New York; Second Sight: Printmaking in Chicago, 1935-1995 at the Mary Leigh Block Gallery of Northwestern University in Chicago (1996): National Drawing Invitational, The Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock (1992); In the Heart of the Country/ En el corazón del país, The Chicago Cultural Center (1991); Adivina! Chicago Latino Expressions at the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art in Chapultepec, Mexico City (1998) and Expresiones Hispanas a two-year traveling exhibition (1988-89) that begun at the Mexican Cultural Institute in San Antonio.
Suárez has also been the recipient of several awards including three Illinois Arts Council Individual Visual Artist Fellowship Awards (1991, 1994, 1999), an Arts Midwest/NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship (1992), was the inaugural recipient of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture’s (University of Chicago) Artist in Residence Fellowship in 2003-2004. Most recently, Suárez was a faculty fellow at the Center for Latino Research (DePaul University, autumn 2011) and an artist in residency at the Ragdale Foundation (Lake Forest, IL, November –December 2014).