Teacher Exchange: A Studio Visit
Apr 28, 2011

The Whitney’s Teacher Exchange is a year-long paid program where teachers and museum educators work as equal partners to learn from one another and exchange ideas about art and teaching. Participants in this program also have the opportunity to speak with curators and artists.

On Monday, April 4, the eleven participants visited Angel Otero’s studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Otero is currently the artist-in-residence in the Whitney’s teen program, Youth Insights. For many of us, this was a first visit to an artist studio; it was exciting to see what goes on before a work of art lands on the walls of a gallery or museum.

Otero’s discipline and dedication is inspiring. He is in his studio working on several paintings and sculptures at the same time, seven days a week. He paints on large pieces of glass, which are mounted on the studio walls. When the painting is complete, Otero then removes the glass from the wall and puts it onto a shelf to dry for two to three weeks. Those weeks, according to Otero, are both exciting and nerve-wracking. He says he’s not sure what to expect, both because he has hasn’t seen the painting for days and also because it may be distorted once scraped from the glass. During the visit, he slid one of the pieces of glass out from the shelf, so we could look at a corner of the painting; we could see greenery on a white background.

When the paintings are dry, Otero scrapes off the “oil skins” from the glass and lays them on cardboard. This transfer process cannot happen without the help of two studio assistants since the skins are large and extremely delicate. They sometimes rip and fold, and surfaces stick to each other. However, Otero embraces these occurrences: they result in elements that are an integral part of his finished works.