Text by Tobias Ostrander, John Tain. Interview by Julie Rodrigues Widholm.
Tracing an artist’s evolution: dreamlike visual narratives with figurative elements rendered through Otero’s famed abstract technique incorporating collage and paint-scraping
After gaining attention for his experimental abstract oil paintings in the early 2010s, the Puerto Rican artist Angel Otero (born 1981) began to pursue a bold new direction, merging his acclaimed form of abstraction with figurative elements to create multilayered, dreamlike scenes that synthesize the observed and the imagined into powerful meditations on memory and identity. Otero has increasingly embraced the personal in his work, integrating photographs, family memorabilia and memories from his Puerto Rican upbringing. This book explores recent developments in the artist’s work, featuring new works produced for his 2026 Hauser & Wirth Somerset show. Alongside insightful essays by curators Tobias Ostrander and John Tain, a conversation between Otero and curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm explores the artist’s practice in his own words, while studio photography documents his labor-intensive process of layering, peeling and collaging oil paint.
STATUS: Forthcoming | 9/15/2026
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Published by Hauser & Wirth Publishers. Text by Tobias Ostrander, John Tain. Interview by Julie Rodrigues Widholm.
Tracing an artist’s evolution: dreamlike visual narratives with figurative elements rendered through Otero’s famed abstract technique incorporating collage and paint-scraping
After gaining attention for his experimental abstract oil paintings in the early 2010s, the Puerto Rican artist Angel Otero (born 1981) began to pursue a bold new direction, merging his acclaimed form of abstraction with figurative elements to create multilayered, dreamlike scenes that synthesize the observed and the imagined into powerful meditations on memory and identity. Otero has increasingly embraced the personal in his work, integrating photographs, family memorabilia and memories from his Puerto Rican upbringing.
This book explores recent developments in the artist’s work, featuring new works produced for his 2026 Hauser & Wirth Somerset show. Alongside insightful essays by curators Tobias Ostrander and John Tain, a conversation between Otero and curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm explores the artist’s practice in his own words, while studio photography documents his labor-intensive process of layering, peeling and collaging oil paint.
