La Vaughn Belle holds an MFA from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba, and both an MA and BA from Columbia University in New York. She has exhibited her work in various museums and institutions, including the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York; Clark Atlanta University Art Museum in Atlanta; the African American Museum in Philadelphia; Museo del Barrio in New York; Casa de las Americas in Havana; the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco; the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen; Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen; and the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, among others.
Her work is included in the collections of the National Photography Museum in Copenhagen; Vestsjælland Museum in Denmark; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt, Germany; the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, VA. She has received numerous grants and awards, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 2019 and the Danish Arts Council Project Distinction Award in 2023.