Miguel Ángel Tornero's work has evolved from photography centred on his immediate surroundings forming a sort of visual autobiography (with series such as Compound Imperfect Tense (2004) and Everything's Fine So Far (2007)) to focus on random encounters (The Random Series (2010-2015)). Those encounters set the personal against the external, the urban as discovered in various cities, seen as a complex way of explaining oneself in markedly different settings. This series led to the publication of a book with the same name, which received the national award for Best Art Book of 2014.
Photography is not just a mirror or a window onto Tornero's career but also an object that stands as a medium, a language, a support and a discourse (Photophobia, 2012-2017). In other cases, such as his earlier series Collage! Courage! (2008-2009) and Night in Vain (2011-2019), to which these two works belong, photographs are material that is ripped up and compiled, joined together and associated to generate three-dimensional effects. Curiously, those 3D effects do not turn the works into hyper-realistic objects or mere simulacra of reality, but push them more in the direction of pictorial art or sculpture than photography per se. In any event, images are a consubstantial element, a necessary material and the logical conclusion of his work.
Miguel Ángel Tornero's work has evolved from photography centred on his immediate surroundings forming a sort of visual autobiography (with series such as Compound Imperfect Tense (2004) and Everything's Fine So Far (2007)) to focus on random encounters (The Random Series (2010-2015)). Those encounters set the personal against the external, the urban as discovered in various cities, seen as a complex way of explaining oneself in markedly different settings. This series led to the publication of a book with the same name, which received the national award for Best Art Book of 2014.
Photography is not just a mirror or a window onto Tornero's career but also an object that stands as a medium, a language, a support and a discourse (Photophobia, 2012-2017). In other cases, such as his earlier series Collage! Courage! (2008-2009) and Night in Vain (2011-2019), to which these two works belong, photographs are material that is ripped up and compiled, joined together and associated to generate three-dimensional effects. Curiously, those 3D effects do not turn the works into hyper-realistic objects or mere simulacra of reality, but push them more in the direction of pictorial art or sculpture than photography per se. In any event, images are a consubstantial element, a necessary material and the logical conclusion of his work.