Step inside the studio with Angel Otero. In this exclusive online-only presentation, Angel Otero reveals new paintings he has created while sheltering in place in the upstate New York studio he recently opened. This presentation provides unique insight into the way Angel builds his paintings, moving beyond the physical process and making visible the years of material he has accumulated. We invite you into his world and into his process.
Over the last decade, Angel Otero has experimented with numerous genres and styles, from representational imagery (still lifes, domestic interiors, landscapes), to pure abstraction created using his innovative paint “skins,” to the work he is creating today, which is a harmonious combination of both. In his most recent paintings, recognizable objects and motifs have begun to reemerge through a veil of abstraction―bathtubs, boats, chairs, ladders―seeming to float amidst the frenetic swirls of layers upon layers of vibrant oil paint.
Though known as a painter, Angel has long been a collector (of sorts) interested in materials, history, memory, random objects, and architectural spaces. An avid explorer of antique stores, a world traveler, and a lover of historic museums, every trip Angel takes results in new narrative inspiration as he finds that peculiar chaise lounge, obscure Bonnard painting, or off-the-beaten-path architectural wonder that ends up integrated into one of his paintings.
Inquire about these and other artworks by Angel Otero: inquire@lehmannmaupin.com
Durante la última década, Angel Otero ha experimentado con numerosos géneros y estilos, que van desde imágenes representativas (naturaleza muerta, espacios domésticos, paisajes), hasta una abstracción pura a través de sus innovadoras pinturas o “pieles,” incluyendo su obra más actual, la cual es una armoniosa combinación de ambas. En sus pinturas más recientes, objetos y sujetos reconocibles—tinas de baño, barcos, sillas, escaleras—empiezan a reaparecer a través de un plano abstracto y pareciera que flotan entre remolinos de capas sobre capas de pintura al óleo. Aunque es generalmente considerado un pintor, Angel has sido un coleccionista (de cierto modo) interesado en los materiales, la historia, la memoria, objetos aleatorios, y espacios arquitectónicos. Siendo un ávido explorador de tiendas de antigüedades, un trotamundos, y un amante de los museos históricos, cada viaje que Angel se propone resulta en una nueva inspiración narrativa en donde encuentra un sillón peculiar, una pintura de Bonnard oculta, o una maravilla arquitectónica fuera de lo común, que terminan integrados en una de sus pinturas. Esta presentación da una percepción única de cómo Angel construye sus obras, yendo más allá del proceso físico y evidenciando los materiales que ha acumulado durante años.
Para información acerca de éstas y otras obras de Angel Otero: inquire@lehmannmaupin.com
Angel Otero, 2020
Angel Otero (b. 1981, Santurce, Puerto Rico; lives and works in Brooklyn, New York) is best known for his process-based paintings, collages, and sculptural works that venerate the inherent qualities of his material of choice, oil paint. Employing various methods of collage, Otero explores the potential for abstraction to meaningfully engage memory and identity using line, form, and color. Through a methodically innovative process, the artist paints representationally onto large sheets of glass, scrapes the partially dried oil paint from the surface, and then reassembles the resulting “skins” into multi-layered compositions. In this way, the paint itself emerges as a crucial conceptual component, mobilizing ideas of chance, conveyance, and aesthetic vernacular, while the images and themes it visualizes become fragments or parts of a history energized by the material. Instead of representing his life through art, he archives moments within it through a constant negotiation between lived experience and art historical references.
Click here to read Otero’s full biography.
Angel Otero
Angel Otero (n. 1981, Santurce, Puerto Rico; vive y trabaja en Brooklyn, Nueva York) es reconocido por su pintura basada en un proceso, por sus collages, y por obras escultóricas que veneran las cualidades innatas de su medio preferido, que es la pintura al óleo. Utilizando distintos métodos de collage, Otero explora el potencial de la abstracción para relacionar de manera significativa conceptos de memoria e identidad, utilizando la línea, la forma y el color. A través de un proceso metódico innovador, el artista pinta sobre hojas de vidrio de gran formato, luego raspa de la superficie del óleo parcialmente seco, y finalmente empalma las resultantes “pieles” para crear composiciones superimpuestas. De este modo, la pintura en sí emerge como un componente conceptual, movilizando ideas de cambio, transporte, y vernáculo estético, mientras que las imágenes y temas que se visualizan en la obra se convierten en fragmentos o partes de una historia activada por el propio material. En vez de representar su vida a través del arte, el artista archiva momentos de la misma al encontrar un punto medio entre las experiencias que realmente ha vivido y las referencias tomadas de la historia del arte.
Haz click aquí para leer la biografía completa de Otero.
ANGEL OTERO
Bathed in Light, 2020
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 96 inches
213.4 x 243.8 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Bathed in Light, 2020
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 96 inches
213.4 x 243.8 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Bathed in Light, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 96 inches
213.4 x 243.8 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Bathed in Light, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 96 inches
213.4 x 243.8 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Bathed in Light, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 96 inches
213.4 x 243.8 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Bathed in Light, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 96 inches
213.4 x 243.8 cm
InquireANGEL OTERO
Bathed in Light, 2020
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 96 inches
213.4 x 243.8 cm
Inquire
Pierre Bonnard, Nude in Bathtub, c. 1940–1946
Angel Otero often looks to Pierre Bonnard for his bold palette and the way he renders space. Bonnard’s Nude in Bathtub was particularly influential, and here we see Otero incorporating some of Bonnard’s color palette and subject matter into Bathed in Light. In this work however, rather than a figure the occupant of the bath is a standard chair.
“I have been drawn to Bonnard’s work for over a decade. Some of the first works I came across were the images of the tubs. I found out that he had sketched them in situ and then painted them later from a combination of the sketches and his memory...so for me, Bonnard’s work symbolizes the formal representation of memory, which has always been at the core of my work. In these new paintings I took Bonnard’s process as inspiration.”
While Angel was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago he frequently visited this work by Willem de Kooning, titled Excavation, at the museum, and he has often pointed to it as one of his favorite paintings. The frenetic line work in de Kooning’s paintings hint at narrative content in a way that is similar to much of Angel’s work.
Angel Otero, Bathed in Light, 2020
Angel a menudo mira a Pierre Bonnard por su audaz paleta de color y la forma en que representa el espacio. Nude in Bathtub (Desnuda en la Bañera) de Bonnard fue particularmente influyente, y aquí vemos a Angel incorporando parte de la paleta y el tema de Bonnard en Bathed in Light (Bañada en Luz). En este trabajo, sin embargo, en lugar de una figura, el ocupante del baño es una silla estándar.
“Me he sentido atraído al trabajo de Bonnard por más de una década. Algunas de las primeras obras que descubrí fueron las tinas de baño. Descubrí que las había dibujado in situ y las pintó tiempo después al combinar los bocetos y su propia memoria... así que para mí, el trabajo de Bonnard simboliza la representación formal de la memoria, la cual siempre ha estado presente en el centro de mi trabajo. En estas nuevas pinturas tomé el proceso de Bonnard como inspiración.”
Mientras Angel estudiaba en la Escuela del Instituto de Arte de Chicago, visitaba con frecuencia en el museo este trabajo perteneciente a de Kooning, titulado Excavation (Excavación), y a menudo lo señalaba como una de sus pinturas favoritas. Las líneas frenéticas en las pinturas de de Kooning insinúan el contenido figurativo/narrativo que se puede encontrar en gran parte del trabajo de Angel.
“Typically discussed in relationship to memory, his bold, labyrinthine paintings contain a particular longing that keeps seeping through. The past always does.”
— Isabel Flower, CULTURED, 2020
ANGEL OTERO
Red Velvet, 2019
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 x inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Red Velvet, 2019 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 x inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Red Velvet, 2019 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 x inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Red Velvet, 2019 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 x inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Red Velvet, 2019 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 x inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Red Velvet, 2019 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 x inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Red Velvet, 2019 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 x inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Red Velvet, 2019 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 x inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
Georges Braque, Still Life with Fruits and Stringed Instrument, 1938
Both Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque have long inspired Angel’s use of collage and exploration of perspective and space. In Red Velvet, Angel completely dismantles the picture plane, allowing all aspects of the work―form, color, line, narrative―to exist on the same plane, similar to works like Braque’s Still Life.
“Like most painters, I’ve studied Picasso and Braque since my early school days. I am particularly drawn to Braque’s work from the 1940s and 50s that highlighted a certain nostalgia, an intimacy and isolation that I felt was unique to his work. I am particularly interested in the still lifes, as they have that abstract/figurative balance I am striving for.”
The prominent black shapes here are reminiscent of the flat black shapes and figures depicted in Goya’s “black paintings.” Angel frequently references Goya as an inspiration.
Angel Otero, Red Velvet, 2019
Durante mucho tiempo, tanto Pablo Picasso como Georges Braque han inspirado en Angel el uso del collage y la exploración de la perspectiva y el espacio. En Red Velvet (Terciopelo Rojo), Angel desmantela por completo el plano de la imagen, permitiendo que todos los aspectos de la obra (forma, color, línea, narrativa) existan en el mismo plano, similar a obras como Still Life (Naturaleza Muerta) de Braque.
“Como la mayoría de los pintores, he estudiado a Picasso y Braque desde que empecé a estudiar. Estoy particularmente atraído por el trabajo de Braque de los años 1940s y 50s que resaltó una cierta nostalgia, una intimidad y aislamiento que sentí que era exclusivo de su trabajo. Estoy particularmente interesado en los bodegones, ya que tienen ese equilibrio abstracto/figurativo que me gustaría alcanzar.”
Aquí las prominentes formas negras son reminiscentes de las formas y figuras negras y planas representadas en las pinturas de Goya. Angel frecuentemente hace referencia a Goya como una influencia constante.
ANGEL OTERO
First Rain In May, 2020
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
72 x 96 inches
182.9 x 243.8 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
First Rain In May, 2020
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
72 x 96 inches
182.9 x 243.8 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
First Rain In May, 2020
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
72 x 96 inches
182.9 x 243.8 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
First Rain In May, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
72 x 96 inches
182.9 x 243.8 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
First Rain In May, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
72 x 96 inches
182.9 x 243.8 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
First Rain In May, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
72 x 96 inches
182.9 x 243.8 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
First Rain In May, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
72 x 96 inches
182.9 x 243.8 cm
Inquire“Otero is a painter of myth and history, but with a catch. A painter of today, it’s his very devotion to his medium that impels him to recover the practice of painting (and his own highly personalized version of sculpture) from certain old-fashioned conceptual fables of immateriality to make it vibrant, alive, and above all, hungry again.”
— Christian Viveros-Fauné, writer and curator in Angel Otero (2012)
ANGEL OTERO
Bingo Night, 2020
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Bingo Night, 2020
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Bingo Night, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Bingo Night, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Bingo Night, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Bingo Night, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Bingo Night, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
84 x 108 inches
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Inquire“Embedded in the DNA of his works are specific, albeit nonlinear references to his upbringing in Puerto Rico and the pantheon of artists he admires. He likes how abstraction can embrace the personal and the art historical simultaneously.”
— Hilarie M. Sheets, Introspective Magazine, 2019
ANGEL OTERO
Muddy Waters, 2020
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
32 x 24 inches
81.28 x 60.96 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Muddy Waters, 2020
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
32 x 24 inches
81.28 x 60.96 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
Muddy Waters, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
32 x 24 inches
81.28 x 60.96 cm
Inquire
Claude Monet, En canot sur l’Epte, 1890
Claude Monet is known for his idyllic paintings of people leisurely rowing along rivers in France. In both En canot sur l'Epte and La Barque, the water mirrors the verdant landscape that surrounds it, so the boats appear to float in an ambiguous space, one drifting without a passenger. Though there is a clear horizon line in Angel’s Muddy Waters, the bright yellow sky is mirrored in the water below. The passengers―a chair and a ladder―are clustered together in the boat's stern, creating a sense of unease and imbalance, further disrupting what is typically an idyllic scene.
“I have recently come back to Monet’s work because I like the way he makes it seem as though the boat is surrounded entirely by water. These paintings in particular make me think about total isolation, particularly at this moment in time.”
Claude Monet, La Barque, 1887
Claude Monet es conocido por sus pinturas idílicas de personas remando tranquilamente a lo largo de los ríos en Francia. Tanto en En canot sur l’Epte (En canoa por el Epte) como en La Barque (El Barco), el agua refleja el paisaje verde que lo rodea, por lo que los barcos parecen flotar en un espacio ambiguo, incluyendo uno a la deriva sin un pasajero. Aunque hay una línea de horizonte clara en la obra Muddy Waters (Las Aguas Fangosas) de Angel, el cielo amarillo brillante se refleja en el agua de abajo. Los pasajeros—una silla y una escalera—se agrupan en la popa del barco, creando una sensación de inquietud y desequilibrio, lo que alborota aún más una escena típicamente idílica.
“Recientemente he vuelto al trabajo de Monet porque me gusta la manera en la que hace parecer que el barco está completamente rodeado de agua. Estas pinturas en particular me hacen pensar en el aislamiento total, particularmente en este preciso momento.”
“Through his innovative process of oil paint scraping, Otero both venerates and defies historical oil painting techniques. Otero’s deformation approach to painting represents the role process plays in reconfiguring both personal and historical narratives. He archives moments by creating instances of surprise. His work is a constant negotiation between individual and art history.”
— Elysia Borowy-Reeder, Executive Director of MOCAD in Angel Otero (2012)
ANGEL OTERO
It’s Ok, They Live With Me So I’m Never Alone, 2020
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
80 x 78 inches
203.2 x 198.1 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
It’s Ok, They Live With Me So I’m Never Alone, 2020
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
80 x 78 inches
203.2 x 198.1 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
It’s Ok, They Live With Me So I’m Never Alone, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
80 x 78 inches
203.2 x 198.1 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
It’s Ok, They Live With Me So I’m Never Alone, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
80 x 78 inches
203.2 x 198.1 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
It’s Ok, They Live With Me So I’m Never Alone, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
80 x 78 inches
203.2 x 198.1 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
It’s Ok, They Live With Me So I’m Never Alone, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
80 x 78 inches
203.2 x 198.1 cm
Inquire
ANGEL OTERO
It’s Ok, They Live With Me So I’m Never Alone, 2020 (detail)
Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas
80 x 78 inches
203.2 x 198.1 cm
Inquire
Inquire about works by Angel Otero: inquire@lehmannmaupin.com