Invited artist:Carolina Otero

My current work explores the interplay between nature, the urban environment, and my perceptions of them, reacting on emotional tones, rhythms, and dimensions within life’s ever-changing ux. As a Latin American artist based in Houston, I navigate a space shaped by diverse practices, cultures, and stories in a world marked by upheaval. My work delves into themes of observance, mindfulness, and resilience.

 

In recent years, photography has become central to my practice. My photographs document lived moments and spaces, captured during walks that have evolved into a meditative ritual since the early pandemic lockdown.

 

The foundation of my work frequently begins with pre-existing images—drawings, photographs, engravings, or prints. I deconstruct and combine these with other elements and media, using “seed images” to guide my exploration.

 

“Ecos en círculo” (December 2024) is a collage on a photograph mounted on thin wood. Taken in North Carolina’s shore in October 2022, the photograph is overlaid with fragments of drawings that engage with the trees’ structures, spatial depth, and surrounding landscape. These elements alternately echo and disrupt nature’s rhythms, creating a poetic dialogue between the photograph and the drawings, inviting into a space of reection and wonder.

 

Carolina Otero is a Venezuelan-American visual artist based in Houston, Texas, and a graduate of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City. She works across various media, including printmaking, drawing, collage, plaster, ceramics, and photography. Her two- and three-dimensional works are rooted in automatic drawing and a chance-driven, abstract collage process. Ad hoc encounters inform her mark-making and lens-based works, while her current practice explores the intersubjective nature of photography, creating visual dialogues. Distilled images of nature engage with diverse drawing constructs, evoking resonance, identity, and unexpected presences.

 

 In addition to her artistic practice, Otero is passionate about teaching art. Her interest in creative processes has led her to pursue independent studies in pedagogy and human development.

 

Solo Exhibitions: Grounded in Fragments at Throughline Collective Gallery, Houston; Beatriz Gil Galería, Caracas; The Transart Foundation for Art and Anthropology, Houston; Pinta Miami Art Fair 2017, Pinta Platform; Galería Regina, Houston; French Alliance Gallery; Galería Okyo, Galería Félix, and Sala Mendoza, Caracas; Asociación Ateneo de Aragua and Ateneo de Maracay, Venezuela; Galerie des 7 voies, Paris; and Thereses Kunstsalong, Oslo.

 

Selected Group Exhibitions: Lawndale Art Center, Houston; Lone Star College, Kingwood; Archway Gallery, Houston; Amarillo Museum of Art; Holocaust Museum Houston; Sicardi Ayers Bacino, Artbox Gallery, The Union (Houston); Nina Torres, Miami; National Gallery of Art, and Mario Abreu Contemporary Art Museum, Venezuela.

 

Otero’s work is part of private and public collections in the United States, Canada, France, Norway, England, Australia, Colombia, and Venezuela. Reviews and interviews about her work have been featured in prominent newspapers and magazines in Venezuela and the United States.