Eugenio Espinosa
Eugenio Espinosa · Source: New York Artists Circle · Rights retained by the original rights holders
- Medium
- Acrylic Paint, Clay
- Based in
- Jersey City
- Practice
- Ceramics, Drawing
Eugenio Espinosa was born in Habana, Cuba, and emigrated to the U.S. at age 11, settling in Paterson, NJ. He majored in Zoology at Drew University, thereafter studied at the School of Visual Arts and then Rutgers Univers… Full biography
Biography
Eugenio Espinosa was born in Habana, Cuba, and emigrated to the U.S. at age 11, settling in Paterson, NJ. He majored in Zoology at Drew University, thereafter studied at the School of Visual Arts and then Rutgers University (MFA, 1981). He currently resides in Jersey City.
Mr. Espinosa has exhibited his work throughout the New York metropolitan region, including one-person exhibitions in Choplet Gallery, Williamsburg, NY; Weir Farm, Branchville, CT; PS 122 in New York City; New Jersey City University; Drew University, Madison; Bloomfield College; and Glassboro State College.
His work has been included in group exhibitions at Drawing Rooms, Jersey City; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton; Morris Museum, Morristown; Aljira, Newark; Hopper House, Nyack; and Cuba Art New York, New York City.
He has received awards from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Cintas Foundation, Kellogg Foundation and has been awarded residencies including Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, Weir Farm, and others.
His work is in private collections as well as in the collections of Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Rutgers University Permanent Collection, Voorhees-Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick; and Nelson Hall Collection, Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Artist statement
In the past few years, I have been making images on clay tiles after working with painting for a long time. I like the intimacy of the small scale and domestic warmth of the tiles. Working with relief suits my wish to create a small-scale drama, in the tension between three dimensions and two, the real and the imagined.
Each piece is meant to be like a ballad, sung by an imaginary griot narrating tales, ephemeral and timeless, specific and general, true and invented. The protagonists of these stories are the family members whose presence in my memory is a strong umbilical cord (or sometimes a gossamer thread) to protect against the ravages and embellishments of time and distance, loss, and the pitfalls of nostalgia.
