Xenobia Bailey was born in 1955 in Seattle, Washington. Between 1970 and 1974, she attended Seattle Central Community College and the University of Washington, Seattle, where she studied with Jacob Lawrence and specialized in ethnomusicology. She received her B.I.D. from Pratt Institute in 1977. Her work has been the subject of numerous solo presentations, including exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Northwest African American Museum, Seattle; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan; the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton; the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus; the Jersey City Museum, Jersey City; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Allentown Art Museum, Allentown; Rush Arts, New York; Stux Gallery, New York; the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Bronx;  and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis.

Her work frequently features in major group exhibitions at public institutions both stateside and abroad, including presentations at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; the Mott-Warsh Collection, Flint; the National Academy of Design, New York; the Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis; the Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick; the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; the New York Public Library, New York; the Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln; Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham; De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea; Arnolfini, Bristol; the Museum of the City of New York, New York; BRIC, Brooklyn; the ICA Boston, Boston; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines; Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta; Sharjah Art Foundation, Dubai; the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca; the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle; the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; Artists’ Space, New York; the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, among others.

Bailey’s work has been featured in several important films and advertising campaigns, including Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and Mo’ Better Blues, several episodes of The Cosby Show and A Different World, campaigns for United Colors of Benneton, and Absolut Vodka. In 1999, Bailey was an artist in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem. She has received numerous grants and residencies, including fellowships from the New York State Crafts Alliance, the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, the National Endowment, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Creative Capital, the Society for Contemporary Craft, the Nancy Graves Foundation, the Museum of Arts and Design, Anonymous Was A Woman, the McColl Center for Art + Innovation, and BRIC, among many others. In 2015, Bailey unveiled her mosaic “Funktional Vibrations” above the main entrance of the 34th Street/Hudson Yards subway station, the largest work ever commissioned by the MTA.

She frequently receives major public commissions for her work, including recent projects with PSE&G, Newark; the Coney Island Development Fund, Brooklyn; the Spa Beach Pier District, St. Petersburg; the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C.; the National Black Arts Theater, New York; and the Association for Public Art, Philadelphia. Her work was featured in “SITElines.2016: New Perspectives on Art of the America,” the 2016 iteration of SITE Santa Fe. Bailey’s work is held in the permanent collections of numerous public institutions, including the Allentown Art Museum, Allentown; Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton; Meta-Open Arts, New York; Museum of Arts and Design, New York: Newark Museum of Art, Newark; Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis; Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, New York; Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln; Spritmuseum, Stockholm; and Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Bailey lives and works in Philadelphia, PA, and New York, NY.