ANGEL OTERO

Among his most illustrative bodies of work are his so-called ‘paint skins,’ which are made by painting on glass then, once dry, scraping off the paint in sheets like peeled layers of skin. Those peeled paint skins can then be rearranged on a canvas to create a layered, textured abstract composition, which can be interpreted as a re-mixed material memory of its own creation.

In another body of work, Otero employs silicone and powdered pigments to create fragile abstract impressions on canvas. Known as the Transfer Series, this body of work takes imagery from Otero’s personal history and distills it down to a line pattern evocative of a traditional woodcut print. Following the lines with silicone and dusting the canvas with raw pigment, Otero transfers the images between canvases in an act that is simultaneously creative and destructive, forming new abstract images while the original is destroyed in the transfer.

With these processes, Otero showcases the physicality of his materials beyond their historical uses as image-making mediums, making the materials and processes the subjects of the work.

Early Years

Angel Otero was born in 1981 in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Raised in a close-knit family home filled with the textures of Caribbean domestic architecture and Catholic iconography, Otero’s early environment would later become a lasting influence on his art. He initially studied finance at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, but soon pivoted to pursue art, moving to Chicago to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where he completed both his BFA (2007) and MFA (2009).

In 2009, Otero featured in his first major solo exhibition at Kavi Gupta Gallery in New York. It was the same year that the artist appeared in an institutional show: Constellations (2009) at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Curated by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, the show explored various and unique approaches to painting dating from the 1940s to the present.

Otero now lives and works between Brooklyn, New York and Puerto Rico, often sourcing materials and ideas from his childhood home.

Angel Otero Artworks

Otero’s practice is distinguished by his transformation of the oil painting medium, turning paint into collaged, three-dimensional surfaces emblematic of personal memory and displacement.

Oil Skin Paintings (2009–2013)

Otero’s signature ‘oil skin’ method, developed while a graduate student, involves painting images on glass, partially drying them, and peeling the paint ‘skins’ to reapply to canvas in new, abstracted forms. Early works such as Four Corners (2010) demonstrate Otero’s fusion of Baroque sensibility and expressive abstraction, disrupting familiar narratives through process.

Transfer Series and Memory (2015–2017)

In the Transfer Series, Otero began using silicone and powdered pigment to physically transfer family snapshots and domestic scenes onto canvas, capturing both the ephemerality and endurance of personal history within fragmented surfaces.

Domestic Structures and Materiality (2018–2022)

During this period, Otero incorporated materials such as window grilles, upholstery fabric, and physical fragments of furniture directly onto his canvases, as in the exhibition Diario (Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 2019–2020). These artworks evoke the architecture and emotional resonance of Puerto Rican homes, while deepening his sculptural approach.

Return to Figuration and Narrative (2023– )

Recent exhibitions, including The Ocean in My Room (Vito Schnabel Gallery, 2023–2024) and That First Rain in May (Hauser & Wirth, 2024), reveal a renewed embrace of figuration, vibrant colour fields, and overt references to Otero’s Caribbean heritage. Here, layered oil skins are combined with motifs from nature, childhood, and domestic interiors, resulting in complex compositions that are both poetic and tactile.

Select Public Commissions

• Latidos (2022), public sculpture at Carnegie Mellon University, which references the vibrant geometry of San Juan’s built environment.
• Permanent artwork at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, connecting the experience of travel to roots and memory.

Select Awards and Accolades

• Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Visual and Performing Arts, 2009
• Ford Foundation Latinx Art Futures Symposium Fellow

Exhibitions

Angel Otero has presented both solo and group exhibitions at important galleries and major institutions. Notable shows include:

Solo Exhibitions

• That First Rain in May, Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles, 2024
• The Ocean in My Room, Vito Schnabel Gallery, St. Moritz, 2023–2024
• Diario, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, 2019–2020
• Elegies, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, 2017
• Everything and Nothing, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, 2016–2017
• Angel Otero, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, 2015

Group Exhibitions

• The Other Side of Now, Pérez Art Museum Miami, 2019
• Visual Memory, Istanbul Modern, 2010
• 30 Americans, Cincinnati Art Museum, 2013
• Constellations, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 2009

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