Manuel Aja Espil

Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary (HM&C) is pleased to present Manuel Aja Espil: Ozymandias, an exhibition of paintings by Argentine-born Madrid-based artist Manuel Aja Espil.

Ozymandias is the second exhibition of Aja Espil’s work at HM&C. On view are nine new paintings that draw thematically from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s eponymous 19th-Century poem. Like Shelley’s Ozymandias, Aja Espil’s paintings assert the sublime power of nature, and posit it as a force superior in strength to human civilization. The artist’s new works comprise eerie, evocative landscapes embedded with fragments from the present industrial age—many having succumbed to the corrosive forces of time and nature. Together, these images seem to act as missives from the future; they encourage us to examine the ultimate consequence of humanity’s current trajectory, while underscoring art’s uniquely potent capacity to examine, to memorialize, and to mediate between unequal forces.

Originally an aspiring filmmaker, Aja Espil eventually enrolled in the Artists’ Program at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires. His painting practice, however, remains connected to cinema—invoking the narrative structures and thematic explorations of the contemporary science fiction genre, in particular. At the same time, Aja Espil has developed a distinctive pictorial language with which to explore his dystopian subjects, fantastically fusing European Romantic tradition with contemporary iconography.

Since his last exhibition at HM&C, Aja Espil has shown his work in Spain, Portugal, and Argentina. His paintings can be found in prominent private collections in New York, Milan, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, and Guayaquil. Aja Espil is a 2024 recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and has also received grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation (2023, 2022), the Asociación Amigos del Museo Rosa Galisteo (2019), the Fondo Nacional de las Artes, Argentina (2018), and the Centro Cultural Recoleta, Argentina (2017).

Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary was founded by Isabella Hutchinson in 2020. HM&C specializes in modern and contemporary art of the Americas, with a focus on Latin American and Latin diasporic art. Through our exhibitions and online Study Rooms, we aim to augment the visibility of work by our artists and foster critical engagement with their practices.