About his work

Tomás Martínez (Sagahún-Colombia): Through painting and drawing, as a visual artist, seeks to give meaning to the problems existing in the environment of the Colombian armed conflict, political divisions, and social problems. The pictorial representation of various objects, such as gallons of gasoline, matchboxes, second-hand wooden houses, the map of Colombia conceptually approached from different angles, and boxing gloves of a popular sports brand, appropriated and transgressed by Ultralast in the work Since 09/04/1948, reflects a symbolic charge that is decontextualized according to the work. This conceptual approach is nourished by social criticism, political denunciation, and the violence of the armed conflict, with metaphors full of irony and a bit of black humor.

The most recurrent means to carry out the elaboration of his pieces is painting, whose process begins with small ideas embodied in drawings not so produced or elaborate, constituting 50% of the work. This process is complemented by the design of the work through different design programs, ensuring that the sketch fits the final piece. The realization of the piece can be painting, drawing—whose aesthetics contains a bit of pop art—, hyperrealism, or conceptual. Currently, he is exploring other techniques, such as sculpture, assemblages, and digital media.

In 2019, he was selected in a curatorial effort by Master Luis Fernando Ramírez Celis from the Banco de la República to participate in the 9th version of Imagen Regional (Caribbean and Insular Region city of Santa Marta, National city of Bogotá DC, and Itinerant throughout the cultural areas of the Banco de la República of the country). In 2023, his work Since 09/04/1948 was selected to be part of the Feria del Millón de Bogotá.