Jesus Raphael Soto was born in 1923 in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela. He studied at the Escuela de Artes Plasticas in Caracas. In 1947 he joined the School of Fine Arts in Maracaibo, Venezuela, where he worked as director until 1950. He then travelled to Paris where he still lives and works, regularly returning to Caracas.

During the mid-1950's Soto began experimenting with the concept of optical movement. He developed elements in space then placed them in front of flat backgrounds composed of thin parallel lines. This produced the effect of virtual movement and optical vibration.

In 1973 the Jesus Soto Museum of Modern Art was opened in Ciudad Bolivar. A year later, in 1974, Soto was honoured with a retrospective exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. This work makes Soto one of the most important representatives of kinetic art today.