Tomás Ochoa. Pulvis Nigrum, Black Gunpowder

About

Lois Lambert Gallery presents Colombian artist Tomás Ochoa, in his solo exhibition, “Pulvis Nigrum, Black Gunpowder”, a selection of photographic images of the Colombian landscape, forged on canvas with fire on gunpowder and the ash it leaves behind. If in photography it is the impact of light on silver halides that produces the image, in these pieces it is the effect of fire on grains of gunpowder. “Pulvis Nigrum, Black Gunpowder” is comprised of pieces from two bodies of work, “Paradise Black Line” and “Memento Mori”. 

“Paradise Black Line” is a series of images taken from the untouched landscape of the Sierra Nevada in Colombia, as it has remained for over a century. In 2003 the Arhuaco mamo people walked all along the border of their ancestral territory protesting the paramilitary control in that region and healing any ecological disruption the “guerrillas” had caused. The Arhuaco mamo named that border La Línea Negra that translates into The Black Line.  The conflict-free protest resulted in “reduced violence and strengthened Indigenous control of the territory”. Ochoa viewed this migration as a poetic yet political act and it inspired him to travel to that region to document the borderline himself. 

As a result of the paramilitary occupancy of that region the ecosystems have been well preserved and have turned it into a real paradise. The idyllic nature of his images versus the fire that helps create them evokes the same paradox that arises in the discussion of the well-preserved landscape, in relation to the violence that occurs there. 

In “Memento Mori” Ochoa explores the concept of ruins as an allegory of time. Ochoa composes the scenes with architectural elements from photographs taken in his travels and then juxtaposed with images of the landscape. The outdoors, the weather, and the vegetation that invades the spaces in the mocked ruins create an index of time like a track of footprints directing the traveler. By manipulating the image Tomás fabricates a timeline that represents the original destruction of the natural landscape but also the hopeful future that the landscape will continue to grow.

Ochoa’s process utilizes oil and gunpowder to replace every pixel of his photograph and fire to transfer the image onto the canvas. Ochoa creates, as he puts it,  “photography that is not photography and painting that is not painting”. The granular texture that the gunpowder leaves behind creates an illusion of depth that is not rendered through pure painting or photography. The material Ochoa has chosen is associated with trauma, and the act of lighting the image on fire transforms it into an act of catharsis. The fire in this instance creates something of beauty and calm that gives hope for a new beginning. 

Tomás Ochoa studied Visual Arts, Division of Postgraduate Studies from UNAM in Mexico City, Mexico and Cinematographic Direction at ECAM in Madrid, Spain. Ochoa has had solo exhibitions in various countries, including, Greece, Switzerland, Germany and Spain. Ochoa has been producing artwork for the last 15 years and continues to live and work in Colombia.