Edra Soto

Edra Soto (b. 1971, San Juan, Puerto Rico) is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and educator based in Chicago, where she also co-directs the outdoor project space The Franklin. Drawing from her upbringing in Puerto Rico and her life in the United States, Soto’s work examines constructed social orders, diasporic identity, and the enduring effects of colonialism.

Her work has been exhibited widely at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; ICA San Diego; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; Phoenix Art Museum; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; and SculptureCenter, Cleveland, among others. Recent projects include her participation in the Chicago Architecture Biennial, a major commission for the expansion of O’Hare International Airport’s Terminal 5, and GRAFT, a large-scale installation commissioned by Public Art Fund for Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park, New York, and a Special Project at Untitled Art Miami 2025 with the Morgan Lehman Gallery. 

Soto is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a USA Fellowship, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, the Joyce Foundation Award, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, the 3Arts Next Level Fellowship, the Foundwork Prize, the Ree Kaneko Award, and a fellowship from the US Latinx Art Forum. She has participated in international exchanges in Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Cuba through the MacArthur Foundation’s International Connections Fund, and has attended residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Headlands Center for the Arts, Project Row Houses, and Art Omi.

Her work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Art Institute of Chicago; Pérez Art Museum Miami; Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico; McNay Art Museum; DePaul Art Museum; and other public and private collections.

Soto holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico.