The first time, I think the most positive reaction I had wasn’t that it was new or unique, I just knew that there was a very direct conversation here with the history of painting.
“Then I quit everything to move to Chicago, and my family stopped talking to me, a lot of people were very surprised that I would leave a stable job to pursue this thing called painting.” It was here that Otero earned a BFA, MFA, multiple recognition awards as well as the attention of Chicago’s own Kavi Gupta Gallery and the Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York, both of whom represent Otero’s work. Otero’s process glimpses past the possibilities and impossibilities of painting. It begins as casually as the classical form of using oils; however the strokes are collected upon a sheet of Plexiglas instead of their natural canvas. The painter and palate paints
scenes he describes as being “very personal, almost private” often influenced by his family and native Bayamon. Upon completion of the painting, he spreads another thick layer of oil paint across the glass, completely covering his work. This is then left for up to a month to dry. “This allows me to make paintings that may relate to things I don’t want to be so direct about, and the process of damaging the painting protects me from any kind of judgement. It’s like having secrets.” Otero returns to the Plexiglas to scrape what he calls the “oil skin” which reveals the metamorphosis of his work. “The stains of original colours transfer to the new colours like a print,” whoa Fall 2013 | 81