-
Artworks
Angel Otero
Untitled, 2021Oil paint and fabric collaged on canvas47 1/2 x 31 1/2 x 1 1/2 in (120.7 x 80 x 3.8 cm)AO003While best known for paintings that are all over abstractions collaged from a single paint skin that the artist carves into, Angel Otero’s newest body of work features representational imagery...While best known for paintings that are all over abstractions collaged from a single paint skin that the artist carves into, Angel Otero’s newest body of work features representational imagery painted directly onto blank canvases and paint skins, foregrounding images drawn from Otero’s memories of his childhood while maintaining the artist’s signature process and abstract style. In works like Untitled (2021), recognizable objects and motifs―beds, house plants, bird cages, couches―seem to float amidst or emerge from the frenetic swirls of layers upon layers of vibrant oil paint. Each painting engages with memories associated with specific objects or spaces, in this case items found in the home. Though memory has always been a key narrative component of Otero’s work, it was previously expressed through material specificity or patterning. Now, depictions of items tied to childhood memories (particularly of the furniture from Otero’s grandmother's home in Puerto Rico) are combined with art historical influences that range from Pierre Bonnard’s interiors to Joan Mitchell’s vibrant palette to Georges Braque’s use of fragmented and fractured space. Otero’s inclusion of beds, bathtubs, and chairs invites us to consider our own relationship to these quotidian objects while also reflecting the artist’s personal history, family, and domestic space. These objects function as subjects, in place of the traditional figure or landscape, and exist as both concrete forms and repositories for memory, their significance constructed through their daily use and the accumulation of associations.
2of 2