Angel Otero

The exhibition’s title draws from a popular saying in Spanish, ‘La Primera Lluvia de Mayo,’ that stirred Otero’s imagination in childhood. Local lore held that the first rain in May brings luck to those drenched by it; children and adults alike bathed in these inaugural downpours, a ritual in which natural forces conjured seemingly magical ones. The presence of water pervades Otero’s work, symbolic of the artist’s psychological and material explorations: self-reflection and a synthesis of ideas flow through his paintings like currents that the viewer can feel.

The exhibition at Hauser & Wirth West Hollywood also marks Otero’s return to sculpture. In ‘Rayuela (Hopscotch)’ (2024), he combines the disparate elements of ceramics and welded metal, directly referencing the decorative wrought iron gates from his childhood home in Puerto Rico. Like the jalousie window shutters that recur in his work, these permanent yet permeable fixtures protect the home while allowing the elements to flow freely. Wind, air, light, sounds and smells travel through them, creating an ever-changing dynamic between interior and exterior. Complementing this sculpture’s ornate iron geometry is a glazed and painted hopscotch grid.

Otero’s labor-intensive process of oil painting allows for an active exchange with the medium, inviting chance into his practice. He begins each new work by painting the foreground scene on plexiglass first and then working backward in layers, so the background is painted last. Building in a layer of fabric to hold the entire structure together, he then scrapes off the resulting paint ‘skin’ and fixes it onto canvas. Afterward, Otero continues to add to the surface, collaging images of items like window shutters, folded paper airplanes and boats from a repository of previously made works to create an entirely new, multilayered composition. These resulting works possess a theatrical quality, with quotidian objects assuming the role of protagonists in elaborate painted settings.