Artist Statement - Lisette Otero-Lewis

El Tercer Espacio (The Third Space)

I grew up in the United States shaped by Puerto Rican parents, culture, and memory, while learning to navigate a country that often asks for simple definitions of identity. I live in the space between those worlds. That space is not always comfortable, but it is where my work exists.

For many years, I did not see myself as Puerto Rican or Latina. My upbringing pulled me toward American habits, language, and ways of moving through the world. Over time, I began to recognize the tension in that distance. My roots are Puerto Rican, yet I am not an Islander. I belong to Puerto Rico, but I am also shaped by colonial American influence. That contradiction does not resolve itself. It informs how I see, how I live, and how I photograph.

My work uses a lyrical documentary approach that blends observation with emotion. I photograph people, interiors, still life, and environments as a way of holding presence rather than proving identity. The images are quiet but intentional. They are built through attention to light, color, and space, allowing meaning to surface without explanation.

Photography has become a grounding practice for me. Each frame is a way of gathering fragments of memory, culture, and experience into something that can exist without needing to be justified. I move between the symbols and colors of my heritage and the rhythms of my American upbringing, not to reconcile them, but to let them coexist.

El Tercer Espacio is not about choosing one identity over another. It is about living within complexity. While the work is deeply personal, it speaks to a shared experience of displacement, hybridity, and belonging. Through these images, I am not only making sense of my own position, but inviting others to recognize themselves in the spaces between.