Squiggly olive greens lend a grounding presence to the dynamic canvas by Houston expressionist painter Ibsen Espada. With its bold and playful black brushstrokes embedded in layers of vibrant colors, Untitled dances to a joyful tune. Thick but short brushstrokes mimic the signs and symbols of calligraphy or graffiti, both artistic forms of written language made visual. The black and olive green lines combine with seemingly haphazard splotches of red, yellow, magenta, cool gray, and lavender, combining these various forms and colors into a perfectly balanced canvas. 

As we look closer, perhaps we can decipher forms—or maybe not. The black lines are thick, controlled, and our eye registers marks that wish to communicate something to us as we search for a recognizable “meaning” among the brushstrokes. In the 1980s, the New York City art scene included the street art of young luminaries such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring who excelled as more traditional artists after experimenting with the strong black lines of graffiti. Street Art took the primary colors and low-brow cultures of the earlier Pop art movement and combined it with the bold energetic brushstrokes of the also earlier Abstract Expressionists. The results were simple yet powerful images that imparted a wild freedom, independence, self expression, joy, and rhythm. Espada seems indebted to this movement although in a gentler form in his local Houston, creating a softer iteration full of energy and joy. Espada’s canvas skillfully manages to not dissolve into a messy or overcrowded blob, but perfectly balances in its blacks and pastels, bold lines and thin splotches (including the colorful fibers embedded in the handmade paper). The artist imparts—what could easily be an incompatible mix—a harmonious symphony.  

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 Hispanic artists to be included in the seminal 1985 exhibit Fresh Paint: The Houston School, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, of which 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 Hispanic artists working in Texas.