Angel Otero: The Sea Remembers

The Sea Remembers is a solo exhibition by the New York- and Chicago-based Puerto Rican artist Angel Otero, which is from his childhood memories, but also represents things that still exist in the artist’s life, both physically and emotionally. They are like a kind of trampoline to something more profound, a stage that brings memories, ideas, questions and opens up to the unknown.

Comprised of 10 new paintings, the exhibition spans two floors of the gallery space and includes vibrant, large-scale canvases that fuse figurative and abstract aspects of Otero's innovative technical practice, advancing the artist's understanding of oil painting as a medium and channel for the self. explore. ——Reflection and analysis. Drawing inspiration from his childhood growing up in Puerto Rico, as well as recent memories, and influenced by the gestural marks of classic artists such as Willem de Kooning, Otero has created a visual realm that evokes the fascinating and sometimes strange way. Become personified through the lens of memory.

The title of the exhibition is taken from the painting The Sea Remembers (2023), in which an upright piano from Otero Studios (a former church in upstate New York) sits against a backdrop of undulating crimson, engulfed in water. The instrument is surrounded by objects from his childhood home, such as cabinets and a rotary telephone, and drawings of waves and sailboats. The floor below (visible through the water) is covered with decorative tiles, a common sight in Puerto Rico, with patterns inspired by traditional 16th-century Spanish tiles. Spread across Puerto Rican homes, these tiles represent the artist's personal recollections and the collective memory of Puerto Rican colonialism.
Angel Otero - << The Sea Remembers>>
Date: 1 Jun – 29 Jul 2023
Gallery: Hauser & Wirth, Hong Kong
Address: 15-16/F, H Queen’s, 80 Queen's Road Central, Central, Hong Kong
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