Most of my work has implicit connections to my native country, Venezuela, where oil production made the promise of modernism more tangible, and its failure more poignant, than elsewhere in Latin America. I ruminate on the future of abstraction while glancing back at Venezuela’s collapsed modernist project – its chromatic remains – through the fracturing prism of contemporary conditions. I use the language of abstraction as a way to materialize and connect ideas. Conceiving abstraction as the critical and poetic language of potential allows me to pierce the detached geometries of ordering structures, making them responsive and more pliable. I work with paint, paper, ink, slides, spices, felt and vinyl. But my favored material is paradox: the promise and perils of utopian abstraction, political formalisms, universal specificities, and the underlying order of chaos.

La mayor parte de mi trabajo tiene conexiones implícitas con mi país natal, Venezuela, donde la producción de petróleo hizo la promesa de la modernidad más tangible, y su fracaso más doloroso, que en otras partes de América Latina. Yo exploro el futuro a través de la abstracción, a su vez miro el pasado, estudiando el colapsado proyecto modernista de Venezuela – sus restos cromáticos – a través del prisma de la fractura de las condiciones contemporáneas. Uso el lenguaje de la abstracción como una forma de materializar y conectar ideas. Concebir la abstracción como lenguaje de crítica y poética de un potencial me permite perforar las geometrías de las estructuras adosadas y llevarlas hacia algo más sensible y más flexible. Trabajo con la pintura, el papel, la tinta, las diapositivas, las especias, el fieltro y vinilo. Pero mi materia favorita es la paradoja: la promesa y los peligros de la abstracción utópica, formalismos políticos, las especificidades universales, y el orden que ya subyace al caos.

Selected Biographical Information

Education / Training

• 2009: MA, Aesthetics and Politics, School of Critical Studies, CalArts, CA, USA.
• 1999: MFA, Painting, Claremont Graduate University, CA, USA.
• 1996: BA, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, USA.
• 1989-1990: Instituto de Arte Federico Brandt, Caracas, Venezuela.

Prizes / Fellowships

• Obermann Grant Wood Fellowship, University of Iowa, IA, USA.
• Ahmanson Scholarship, California Institute of the Arts, CA, USA.
• Five College Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of the Americas Fellowship, Five Colleges, MA, USA.
• Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts Grant, MA, USA.
• Claremont Graduate University Fellowship, CA, USA.

Solo Exhibitions

• 2013: “Color Felt”, Soho20 Chelsea Gallery, NY, USA.
• 2013: Los Angeles, Ruth Bachofner Gallery, CA, USA.
• 2012-2013: “Never Underestimate a Monochrome”, University of Iowa Museum, Iowa City, IA, USA.
• 2012: Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, CA, USA.
• 2012: “Color’s Ordinates and Affinities: Instructions for Chromatic Living”, University of Iowa ABW Gallery, IA, USA.
• 2011: “Abstract Numbers of a Revolution”, University of Iowa, IA, USA.
• 2010-2011: “The Utopian Tense of Green”, Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
• 2010: Soho20 Chelsea Gallery, NY, USA.

Group Exhibitions

• 2013: “Lines of Poetry”, Diane Birdsall Gallery, Old Lyme, CT, USA.
• 2012: “Pink Assignment”, Soho20 Gallery, NYC, NY, USA.
• 2011: “An Exchange with Sol Lewitt”, MASS MoCA, USA.
• 2011: “Gifting Abstraction”, Soho20 Gallery, NYC, NY, USA.
• 2010: “Muse/Reuse”, Doug Adams Gallery at the Badé Museum, Berkeley, CA, USA.

Publications

• 2013: Goodrich, John, “Only Engage,” City Arts: New York’s Review of Arts and Culture.
• 2013: Prugh, Brian,”Revolt Against the City and Never Underestimate a Monochrome,” Iowa City Arts Review, 1, Vol. 7.
• 2013: Berry, Amy,” Artists on the same page in Old Lyme exhibit,” The Day.
• 2007: Benko, Susana, “Extra-pictórico,” Art Nexus, 66, Vol. 6.
• 2007: Miguel, Miguel “Mariángeles Soto-Díaz,” Arte al Día.
• 2007: Carreño, Freddy, “Fia 2007,” Art Nexus, 66, Vol. 6.
• 2007: Yáñez, Ondina “Mariángeles Soto-Díaz en un Laboratorio de Chocolate,” Revista GP.
• 2006: Méndez, María Gabriela “El Chocolate y sus Divinas Proporciones” El Universal.
• 2005: Carr, Carlin “Gallery: Mariángeles Soto-Díaz” New England Watershed.
• 2002: Monsalve, Jasmín “Mariángeles Soto-Díaz Muestra Abstracción con Olor a Canela” El Universal.
• 2002: Feely, Erik “Mariángeles Soto-Díaz at the Galería Alternativa” The Daily Journal.
• 2001: Cun, Lan “Exhibitions at the Sweeney” Radar.
• 2001: Knaff, Devorah “Revelatory Art” The Press Enterprise.
• 2000: Ollman, Leah “Blood Oaths” Los Angeles Times.
• 2000: Letran, Vivian “Grave Events” Los Angeles Times.

Additional Links

• Never Underestimate a Monochrome