a welcoming dwelling
2025
Edra Soto
Chicago, Illinois
Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.
About Edra Soto
Edra Soto (b. 1971) is a Puerto Rican-born artist, educator, and co-director of the outdoor project space The Franklin. Her 2026 exhibitions, both titled El Lugar de la Morada / The Place of Dueling, were commissioned by the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico. She has received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, the United States Artists USA Fellowship, Bemis Center’s Ree Kaneko Award, the US LatinX Art Forum Fellowship, and the MacArthur Foundation International Connections Fund. Soto has received numerous public commissions, including the Houston Arts Alliance’s United at George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), Terminal B (2026); Public Art Fund at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park (2024-2025); Noor Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (2024); the Chicago Architecture Biennial, IL (2023); and Millennium Park in Chicago, IL (2019). Her work is held in the collections of institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Pérez Art Museum, MacNay Art Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Program Participation
Painters & Sculptors Grant, 2020
Joan Mitchell Center Residency, 2026
Website / Social Links
At the foundation of my practice is my relationship to Puerto Rico’s current cultural identity, one intrinsically shaped by its historical affiliation to Spanish colonial military architecture despite this alliance expiring over a century ago. My work dissects the underlying relationships between these structures and notions of self-value.”
