Angel Otero, The Dangerous Ability to Fascinate Other People: Kavi Gupta | 835 W. Washington Blvd. Chicago, IL, 60607

Kavi Gupta is proud to present The Dangerous Ability To Fascinate Other People, the second gallery solo exhibition of paintings by New York based artist Angel Otero. While much of Otero's works have been influenced by memories based in photographs and other family memorabilia combined with the gestures of 20th century painting, this latest exhibition highlights the artist's unique process as a form of narrative in itself. 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. While one might identify nods to historical painters like El Greco or Van Dyck, one just as easily can recognize in Otero's work the urgency found in Gerhard Richter or Baselitz - artists whose use of personal subject matter was an initial means to creating a dialogue about painting as a process. Otero's work is always negotiating between the individual and art history.

Angel Otero was born in 1981, in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He 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, and Constellations at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Otero is also the recipient of the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Visual Arts.