EDRA SOTO
Edra Soto is a Puerto Rican born interdisciplinary artist and co-director of the outdoor
project space The Franklin. Her recent projects, which are motivated by civic and social
actions, prompt viewers to reconsider cross-cultural dynamics, the legacy of colonialism,
and personal responsibility.
Venues presenting Soto’s work include Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art's
satellite, The Momentary, AK; Albright-Knox Northland, NY; Chicago Cultural Center, IL;
Smart Museum, IL; Museum of Contemporary Photography, IL and the Museum of
Contemporary Art of Chicago, IL. Soto completed the public art commission titled
Screenhouse on view at Chicago's Millennium Park until Spring 2023. Soto has attended
residency programs at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Beta-Local, the
Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency, Headlands Center for the Arts, Project Row
Houses and Art Omi among others. Soto was awarded the Efroymson Contemporary Arts
Fellowship, the Illinois Arts Council Agency Fellowship, the inaugural Foundwork Artist
Prize and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant among others.
Between 2019-2020 Soto exhibited and traveled to Brazil, Puerto Rico and Cuba as
part of the MacArthur Foundation’s International Connections Fund.
Soto holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a bachelor’s
degree from Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico.
Shown: Graft, 2022, mixed mediums, 29x24 inches