Espada has proven to be one of the most important and prolific Texas painters of our time.  His abstract expressionist paintings consistently deliver an air of joy and liveliness that makes him an endearing member of the Houston art scene. Fisherman’s Catch is a great example of this colorful enthusiasm. The work is created from two large pieces of handmade paper that display a richly textured surface that include many fine fibers of various colors. This textured surface is then the genesis for a narrative of watery themes surrounding a well-lived life by the beach. Made with washes of color in vivid tones of blues and purples, the squirming fish may indicate Espada’s early life in Puerto Rico. An atmosphere of carefree, ocean-going days with plentiful summers permeates the canvas. The painting delivers an immediacy of a slippery catch-of-the-day wiggling in the net with rhythmic movement and buoyancy. The work brings forward the salt air of life near the ocean. Thick black watery strokes lend the slightest hit of form, while washes of blues with hints of sunset reds and yellows fill out the spaces. Slight splotches and drops of washed color appear irregularly like serendipitous occurrences and perfectly capture the scene of a water-soaked day at the beach. 

Escada works in the style of the traditional Abstract Expressionists that came before him, who similarly used thick black lines with expressionistic and gestural applications of paint. Sharing a resemblance to the earlier darker works of Jackson Pollock and the slightly representational works of William de Kooning, Escada’s thick black lines feel less heavy and outraged than his predecessors. Escada’s calligraphic style of broad thick black strokes is expressionistic but never sloppy–not an easy act to achieve. The artist’s style and techniques continuously change over time according to his moods, from early figurative drawings to mixed patches of uncoordinated color, to later bold colorful canvases of repeated patterns. He frequently experiments with various tools and styles. Working beyond the usual palette knife, Espada’s canvases have displayed mixed media collage, squeegee marks, billboard materials, and strokes made with automobile wiper blades. He has been known to cut up his canvases and collage them together in what he has called “quilts,” resulting in an extraordinary mix of color, patterns, and textures. 

Espada was born in New York and raised in Puerto Rico, where he studied painting under his Cuban mentor the sculptor Rolando López Dirube. After moving to Houston in 1975, Espada worked as studio assistant to abstract painter Dorothy Hood where he undoubtedly honed his painterly skills. The 1980s Houston art scene included Espada hanging out with such celebrated and talented locals as Hood, Dick Wray and Richard Stout. The artist was one of the few Latino artists to be included in the seminal 1985 exhibit Fresh Paint: The Houston School, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. It later went on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York later in 1985. He was also included in the 1987 traveling exhibition Hispanic Art in the United States: 30 Contemporary Painters and Sculptors, which debuted at the MFAH. Prominent local Houston artist and curator Jim Hatchett called Espada “one of the best abstract painters in Houston.” His work has been shown in national and international exhibits confirming Espada as one of the most prolific and successful Latino artists working in Texas.