Tomás Espina
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1975
There is a common theme in the works of Tomás Espina: the search for a mark or a trace. In some cases, the mark is made intentionally. When he works with gunpowder, he seeks to show the effect of an accident and, at the same time, that someone passed by and burned surfaces: the corner of a room, a ceiling or a canvas. In the case of Haiti, the installation of hundreds of terracotta heads with a "pre-Columbian" appearance that refers to the ethnographic museum exhibits, the intention is to represent what is hidden, what one does not want to see. Haiti is not only a name but the first independent country of the continent with which, as he states, the West has not called a truce. Therein lies everything that one does not want to be: savage, primitive, shamanic. But in addition, Haiti, in Spanish, sounds like woe, you! Woe is you! (¡Ay ti!, ¡ay de ti!). It is the other who hurts.
Complex interpretations of social phenomena are a hallmark of his work. The first work he showed to the public was a reinterpretation of Ernesto de la Cárcova's famous creation Sin Pan y Sin Trabajo (Without Bread and Without Work). In the midst of the 2001 crisis, he chose to stand in the place of the woman and not in place of the powerless worker who grumbled loudly. Facing a world that was totally unknown to him, he took refuge in painting and represented himself as a helpless and at the same time, more receptive character. The result of this is a reproduction drawn with charcoal on a wall of his studio and then photographed. Tomás appears naked in the woman's place. His gaze on the worker updates the questions of the injustices that are still happening today.
Perhaps some –or all– of this is a consequence of his origin, which is revealed in his accent: a Chilean mother, an Argentine father and moving places multiple times. First, he was exiled in Mexico, later spent time in Mozambique and, finally, returned to Argentina at the age of fifteen to study art. By that time, he was already very clear about his vocation, he wanted to be an artist. But his high school teachers in the late 80's advised him to study advertising or design to be able to "make a living from it". However, he was never good at selling, not even his own work.
In spite of being one of the referents of Argentine contemporary art, partly due to his use of elements with a high degree of instability –powder, soot, smoke and charcoal–, he has always considered himself a frustrated painter. And yet, he does not feel the burden of presenting himself as an artist. He says he remembers the exact moment, on the corner of Pueyrredón and Córdoba, when he assumed this role. Why not say that I’m an artist? No one will ask you for proof, he thought. From that moment on, he exhibits his profession even on airplane forms. But there are limits that he carefully draws. For him, being an artist implies never to bastardize one's own work when the work is made upon request. As a part of a post-2001 generation, marked by social, political and economic crisis, and at the same time very effervescent in artistic production, he recognizes a process of professionalization of the visual arts that requires a certain awareness, to avoid running the risk that would ruin everything: losing one's own voice.
