Elia Tomás

Elia Tomás. Original Artworks on sale.

My gaze is directed towards the human element and it uses the portrait as a means to develop a narrative of the individual. Real life people end up becoming fragments where I explore my vulnerability. Hence the election of the main characters of my work: men, children and teenagers in a continuous redefinition process. They either look back in time searching for parts of themselves that remain incomplete or live with such an intimate intensity a moment of solitude. They struggle to assert themselves and sometimes to compare to others. They often feel they are victims of certain hormonal euphoria and some degree of disappointment.

Rather than naturalistic, I could define my paintings as synthetic. Each canvas is an image construction based on different types of carefully decontextualized photographic materials. Most of these are self-produced, while others come from private collections or historical records. In every work, I enjoy the challenge of searching for a different balance between control and accident. Some of my works are executed with the intention of creating an accurate reproduction of the picture as opposed to others where I prioritize the movement of the brushstroke instead. Hence, visages and bodies transform into stain additions to awaken certain emotional attention in the spectators.

There is something I am very passioned about in some photographies from the ‘80s. Those shadow areas where colors have gradually yielded to blue. Ever since I started painting, I aimed to reproduce that effect by exaggerating shadows and contours. Today I consider color my personal exploratory field for the contemporary. Without setting the blue color aside – almost a generational sign -, I am currently searching for compositions more aware of the possible chromatic combinations. In my latest works, I have devoted plenty of attention to yellow and pink since both are colors that very often arouse some ingenuity and a certain decadence.