Tomás Esson's paintings constitute the main example of what has been called the "Generation of the 80s," and "New Cuban art." Esson incorporates sexual and erotic elements into his paintings to make poignant social, political, and religious statements and commentaries.
Background
Esson was born on February 8, 1963, in Marianao, a suburb of Havana. His parents, a brickmason and a seamstress, are first-generation Cubans. His grand-parents were from Jamaica. Early in his childhood, his teachers identified his natural talents fir the field of drawing and painting.
Education
Using the opportunities that the Cuban government made available to educate children with special artistic skills, they sent Esson to elite art schools. He received artistic training at the Academia de Artes Plásticas San Alejandro (1982) and at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, where he finished in 1987.
Career
During the early 1980s, Esson was considered a bona fide member of the Cuban arts elite establishment. He had been a member of the Union of Communist Youth since age 14 and had been privileged to receive the best arts education Cuba had to offer. However, Esson became disillusioned with what he perceived were the double standards of living in the Castro regime. He saw that the exquisite meals served at official receptions were beyond the dreams of most Cubans. He has said, "The double standard of life makes you a sick person. Play the game or defect are your two choices. I felt I couldn't move, like I was in jail"
In 1987 he was invited to present his work at Havana's Art Center, one of the best art galleries in the island. When his exposition opened, it exhibited a picture titled Mi homenaje al Che (My Homage to Che). The picture, extremely grotesque and perverse, depicts animal like monsters engaging in sexual activity against an image of a black Ché Guevara, one of the fathers of the Cuban Revolution, looking puzzled in the background. When Cuban Minister of Culture Armand Hart saw the painting, he gave Esson a long, stern speech on respect for the national symbols of the revolution. When Esson refused to remove the picture, the exhibit was closed immediately. The point of no return for this artist occurred in 1990, when the government censored his picture 33 micrófonos (33 Microphones). Tire painting satirized Fidel Castro by depicting him as a monster like figure, speaking in front of a battery of 33 microphones that were phallic-shaped. While on an artistic tour in Boston in November 1990, Esson decided to stay in the United States and defected. His family is still in Cuba.
After arriving in the United States, Esson lived in Miami for three years. Although the product of censorship and repression in Cuba, he has rejected the anti-Castro political rhetoric and environment of Miami. He fits with neither the anti-Castro conservatives nor the liberal establishment and refuses to exhibit his work at the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture.
Esson has now moved to New York, where he expects to better penetrate the mainstream art market. He has created commercial art for the Absolut Vodka advertising campaign and continues a prolific artistic production. His artwork sells for significant sums of money and is exhibited in many reputable galleries and museums in the United States, Latin America, and Europe.
Personality
He explains: "I have made a conscious decision to work with sex aggressively, a topic that is the most complex in the world. I want to provoke a reaction from the viewer. 1 want the spectator to examine the hypocritical mentality about sex".
Many of his pictures revolve around the sexual and excretory activities of Talisman, a devil like mythological symbol whose acts he superimposes with elements from the social and political environment experienced by the artist. Themes of mutilation, machismo, repression, political hypocrisy, and violence are pervasive in Esson's work. His sexual and explosive art has created a great deal of controversy both in Cuba and in the United States.
Since his arrival in the United States, Esson has seemingly gone through an identity crisis. He has noted, "The fact that I was born in Cuba and that I have Jamaican roots doesn't identify me automatically with Caribbean issues. I am more concerned with concepts involving the highest levels of art".