Angel Otero

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.

Angel Otero’s practice is process-driven. Whether made on canvas or with porcelain and steel, Otero’s creations mine the fissures of art-historical canons, as well as the personal histories that they evoke.

Angel Otero’s works, while abstract, are embedded with deeply personal narratives. While the artist rejects the literal nature of narrative, it is explicit in the work, particularly in his early figurative paintings and his more recent bodies of “transfer paintings,” created using coal dust and charcoal on linen. Occupying a liminal space between abstraction and figurative work, Otero’s transfer paintings provide viewers with a glimpse into the landscape of the artist’s familial memories.This publication includes an introduction and essay by the organizing curator, Valerie Cassel Oliver, as well as contributions by scholars in the field of contemporary art. The monograph also features color and black-and-white images of the works presented in the exhibition, a bibliography of general reading, and a chronology of the artist’s life and work. The overall scope and comprehensive material featured in the accompanying catalog promise to serve as a scholarly reader and a critical and lasting document. As a feature of the monograph, the artist will be commissioned to create a special-edition poster and cover.

Valerie Cassel Oliver is Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, and has organized numerous group and solo exhibitions.