Tomás Esson Reid, born in 1963 in Havana, Cuba, four years after the revolution, grew up as one of five children to first-generation Cuban parents—a brick mason and a seamstress whose own parents were English-speaking immigrants from Jamaica—experiences that infused his work with themes of Afro-Caribbean heritage and diasporic identity. His artistic talent was identified early under Cuba's state education system, leading to enrollment at the José Antonio Díaz Peláez Elementary School of Visual Arts, from which he graduated in 1978, followed by the San Alejandro School of Fine Arts in 1982, and the Instituto Superior de Arte in 1987, where he received elite training that honed his technical prowess in painting and drawing while exposing him to modernist influences.
Esson's career ignited in the late 1980s amid Cuba's artistic revival, with his first solo exhibition in 1987 earning attention for its raw energy; however, his 1988 show A Tarro Partido II (With Broken Horn II) at Havana's Centro de Arte was shuttered after mere hours by officials, including culture minister Armando Hart, who deemed works like Mi Homenaje al Che—a grotesque, sexualized caricature of Che Guevara—and Cuba Champion! as offensive blends of politics and eroticism that exposed societal double standards. As a former member of the Union of Communist Youth with no overt political agenda, Esson viewed his art as naive social commentary, but the backlash eroded his faith in the regime, prompting participation in key exhibitions and biennials across Cuba and Latin America before his departure from the island in 1990 and formal defection in 1991 during a U.S. visit, settling initially in Miami and later New York before returning to Miami.
Over three decades, Esson's style has transformed from subversive, figurative narratives merging mythological hybrids with socio-political critique—often featuring exaggerated, phallic forms and bodily fluids symbolizing fertility, aggression, and cultural taboos—to a hybrid phase and ultimately pure abstraction, disconnecting from representation to amplify gestural vitality in series like Miami Flow, which immerses viewers in botanical abstractions evoking subtropical wetlands with dense, dynamic oil applications in vibrant hues. Influenced by Surrealism, Francisco Goya, cartoons, graffiti, reggaeton, poetry, and modernist painters like Joan Mitchell and Willem de Kooning, his practice weaves disparate traditions into a variegated tapestry that interrogates colonialism, communism, and diaspora myths, forming an intuitive "visual patois" of repetitive motifs, blooming gestures, and high-energy pigment shifts, as seen in works like Rock the Boat, Birthday, and Alboroto.
Notable solo exhibitions include Imperialism at Ramis Barquet Gallery in New York, The Return of the Dragon at the same venue, El Bicho at Hammonds House Galleries in Atlanta, Mondongo gordo at Denise Andrews Gallery in Miami, Agua at Vrej Baghoomian Gallery in New York, and Ekele Kwa at David Lewis in New York, alongside retrospectives such as The GOAT at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, surveying 30 years of his evolution. Group participations span the Venice Biennale, Havana Biennial, and shows at institutions like the Whitney Museum of American Art and Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst. His pieces reside in permanent collections including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, Ludwig Forum in Aachen, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., Pérez Art Museum Miami, Museum of Contemporary Art in Monterrey, and Fort Lauderdale Art Museum. Esson's enduring impact lies in his uncompromising exploration of cultural and political tensions through abstraction's liberatory forms, positioning him as a vital voice in the Afro-Caribbean contemporary art dialogue.