Mariángeles Soto-Díaz

Mariángeles Soto-Díaz works with paint, but also with paper, ink, slides, spices, UPC codes and vinyl tape. Her work questions the speculative discourse of abstraction, while thinking through the promise and perils of the aesthetic. Through exposing the ephemeral pleasures of seduction and excesses of consumption, she engages the politics of formalism. From her aromatic "kitchen paintings" made with spices to her chocolate-inspired pieces, critics have written that her work posseses "an unusual intimacy that refuses to be interpreted by banal codes," and that it "vindicates painting" in a "promising synthesis of North American and Latin American geometric abstraction."

Soto-Díaz grew up in Caracas, Venezuela and holds an MFA from Claremont Graduate School and an MA from CalArts. Her teachers include Karl Benjamin, Rachel Lachowicz, David Diao, Anoka Faruqee, Sande Cohen and Susan Joseph among others. Equally formative for her are early experiences of work by conceptual abstract Venezuelan artists such as Jesús Soto, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Eugenio Espinoza and Sigfredo Chacón.