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Tomas Moreno
Literary Arts: Author/Writer; Media Arts: Filmmaker; Multi-Disciplinary: Multiple Art Forms, Performer and Writer; Performing Arts: Storyteller; Visual Arts: Mixed Media Artist, Sculptor
Tomas Villalobos Moreno (b. 1983 San Antonio, Texas). He earned his BFA from CalArts and his MFA from the University of California, San Diego. He was a SOMA Summer 2012 resident, Mexico City. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally at venues including the 1st Festival Del Bosque Germinal, Casa del Lago, Mexico City, Lugar a Dudas, Cali Colombia, and The Vincent Price Museum, Los Angeles, CA. He is the recipient of UCIRA and UC MEXUS awards. Moreno currently lives and works in San Antonio, TX.
Resume (PDF)
Work Samples (PDF)
MORE ABOUT THIS ARTIST
Artist Style: Literary: Fiction, History, Non-Fiction, Science Fiction; Music: Americana, Big Band, Bluegrass, Blues, Conjunto, Country, Experimental, Folk, Funk, Gospel, Hip-Hop/Rap, Jazz, Soul/R&B, Tejano, World; Teaching Artist/Instructor: Instruction for Adults, Workshop Presenter; Theatre: Drama; Visual Art: Assemblage, Conceptual, Contemporary, Documentary, Experimental, Formalism, Functional, Minimalism, Narrative/Historical, Photo Realistic, Political, Pop, Sacred/Liturgical Art, Site-Specific, Social Commentary
Artist Statement of Work
Tell us about your work (style, approach, philosophy, subject and/or theme):
Tomás Villalobos Moreno is a multi-media artist mining the space of history as a fluctuating narrative to reveal various connections while exploring the production of knowledge. He utilizes the archive to question popular narratives and themes such as music, linguistic, and the body. These interests ultimately manifest in installation format including sculpture, drawing, performance, video, and creating archives. His art address the materiality of the spectral and psychological, while re-dramatizing the complexity of memory in the malleability of objects through pop culture, music, film, and science fiction.
I’m a composer-archeologist with a deconstructive approach to cultural memory, creating speculative narratives by conjoining various mediums and historical artifacts. My interests oscillate between mass culture, music, architecture, and language. I excavate archives to examine historical lacunas layering various sonic, linguistic, and bodily residues connecting terrains of visibility and erasure. I’m interested in materializing spectral networks by creating spaces of tension within knowledge production.
Culturally Specific Art Category
Select Culturally Specific Art Category:: Ethnically/Culturally Specific Art
VIDEOS
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Multiplication Condensation and Displacement, 2014, 2 channel video - Beginning credits from - Minnie the Moocher 1932 and clips from Betty Boop in Snow-White, 1933 Fleischer Studios. Both videos are Cab Calloway and his band performing and singing. This was the first documented footage using rotoscoping technology invented by the Fleischer brothers. Cab Calloway was shot dancing in front of his band, and then rotoscoped into a popular Betty Boop film animation becoming a ghostly figure singing St James Infirmary Blues aka An Unforuntate Rake a 18th century ballad that has evolved over the course of history. The song narrative is summarized by a young man or woman dying a young age thus a person \"cut down in his/her prime\". Some song lyrics recounts the last memories of the young person chronicling an amoral life gone wrong. The song has been made popular by Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Johnny Cash, Nina Simone, Blind Willie McTell, The White Stripes , Allen Toussaint and countless others. The song has become un-tracelable due to it\'s many renditions. This video was commissioned by Juan Jose Arreola Casa del Lago, Mexico City as part of the 1st Festival Del Bosque Germinal in 2014: http://www.fdbgerminal.mx/