Born in 1981, in Santurce, Puerto Rico, Angel Otero is a visual artist best known for his process-based paintings. While much of his works have been influenced by memories based in photographs and other family memorabilia combined with the gestures of 20th century painting, his latest works highlight the artist’s unique process as a form of narrative in itself. Through his innovative process of oil paint scraping, Otero venerates historical oil painting while confronting it head on. Otero’s ‘deformation’ approach to painting his works, first across glass and then once dry, flaying the dried paint and reconstructing the composition anew across large canvasses, is representative of how the artist perceives the process of reconfiguring both personal and historical narratives. Otero’s work sometimes uses process as a way of confronting deep, personal memories. Instead of representing his life through art, he archives moments within it by creating opportunities of surprise and discovery. His work is a constant negotiation between the individual and art history.

Otero received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent exhibitions include El Museo’s Sixth Bienal at El Museo del Barrio, Memento, a solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin Gallery New York, Misericordia at Prism Gallery Los Angeles, Chicago Cultural Center, Constellations at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, a solo exhibition at ISTANBUL’74, Turkey presented by Lehmann Maupin, and a solo exhibition in India at Gallery Isa, Mumbai. Upcoming show include The SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia and his second solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin Gallery. He is also the recipient of the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Visual Arts. Otero lives and works in New York.