Rawles earned a studio art bachelor's degree in 1998 from Spelman College, Atlanta, where she was exposed to the work of Black women artists such as Carrie Mae Weems and Elizabeth Catlett.
[7] Calida Rawles's figurative paintings of Black women, children, and men submerged in bodies of water that populate the whole canvas space have grown over the years.
Featured in the exhibition, was the painting Guardian that depicts a Black pregnant woman dressed in a white gown holding her own belly under the water.
[6] Her first solo show in New York "On the Other Side of Everything" was presented in 2021 at Lehmann Maupin gallery and featured four paintings expanding on Rawles's investigations about race, gender, and storytelling through works depicting Black subjects in large blue imaginary seas and bodies of water.
[12] In 2022, Rawles was invited to create a mural at Inglewood's new SoFi Stadium, in California, part of the Hollywood Park art program.
Her large paintings measuring about nine feet extended the artist's visual and poetic investigation of life and water, blues and blacks, women and girls.
[17][18] Her work Thy Name We Praise was featured in the show "Black American Portraits" at her alma mater Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in 2023.
The show aims to honor South Florida communities, the region's history and culture as well as its natural environments and landscapes.
According to the press release, the artist will showcase a new body of work experimenting with photographs of natural waters for the first time, such as Virginia Key Beach.