‘THE OBJECTS IN MY PAINTING ARE FROM MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES, BUT ALSO REPRESENT THINGS THAT ARE STILL PRESENT IN MY LIFE, BOTH PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY. THEY ARE A SORT OF TRAMPOLINE TO THINGS WAY DEEPER, A STAGE TO BRING IN MEMORIES, THOUGHTS, QUESTIONS, AND OPEN TOWARDS THE UNKNOWN.’
– ANGEL OTERO
Angel Otero is known for his signature approach to visual storytelling, synthesizing magical realism and abstraction, the observed and the imagined, and the past and the present. Beginning 1 June, Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong presents ‘The Sea Remembers,’ Otero’s first solo exhibition in Asia since he joined the gallery in 2022. Through a labor-intensive process of laying down, scrapping and collaging oil paint, Angel Otero’s works are rooted in abstract image making and engage with the idea of memory through addressing art history, as well as his own lived experience.
Consisting of 10 new paintings and spanning two floors of the gallery space, the exhibition includes vibrant large-scale canvases that merge the figurative and abstract sides of Otero’s innovative technical practice, advancing the artist’s exploration of oil paint as a medium and a conduit for self-reflection and analysis. Drawing from his childhood growing up in Puerto Rico as well as more recent memories, and influenced by the gestural mark-making of canonical artists like Willem de Kooning, Otero has invented a visual realm that evokes the enchanting and sometimes strange ways in which everyday objects become personified through the lens of memory.
The exhibition takes its title from the painting ‘The Sea Remembers’ (2023), where an upright piano from Otero’s studio, a former church in upstate New York, sits against an undulating crimson background and is engulfed by water. The instrument is surrounded by objects from his childhood home, like cabinets and a rotary phone, as well as drawings of waves and a sailboat. Below, the floor––visible through the water––is covered by decorative tiles that are a familiar sight in Puerto Rico, featuring patterns inspired by traditional sixteenth-century Spanish tiles. Found throughout homes in Puerto Rico, these tiles represent both the artist’s personal recollections and the collective memory of colonialism in Puerto Rico.
