Tomás Espina

Tomás Espina

Buenos Aires, Argentina 1975

Lives and Works in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Tomás Espina’s creative origins lie in the practice of engraving and traditional graphic techniques. His work usually begins with pre-existing images that share the themes of crisis, danger and warfare. He takes these images from various sources including graphic media and TV screenshots, and transforms them using aggressive, unstable mediums such as gunpowder, soot and charcoal. Violence works as a determinant of his work in which the visualization procedures – inherited from dark romanticism, alchemy, iconography and certain experiments of the 20th century avant-garde – have a residual aspect, consequence of the corrosive and hazardous action. His final work retains a blurry and unhinged presence, prompting his audience to experience a sense of awkwardness as they attempt to reorganise and make sense of the information in front of them.