Tomás Oliva (Havana, Cuba) is a sculptor whose practice explores the emotional and symbolic weight of materials. Working with iron, rebar, ceramic, and industrial remnants, he transforms construction elements into poetic structures that reflect the tensions of contemporary life. His visual language draws from classical mythology, Taíno cosmology, and the expressive power of erosion, gravity, and time.

Trained at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts (Havana), the Kyiv State Art Institute (Ukraine), and the ISA University of the Arts (Cuba), Oliva has developed a transnational approach that merges craft, myth, and material research. Alongside more than two decades of teaching in Cuba, Mexico City, and the United States, he has built a significant body of monumental public sculpture installed in the United States (Downtown Nashua, Brookline, Sumner, Kirkland, Lummi Island, Miami), as well as in Chile, India, Cuba, Russia, Cyprus, and Ukraine.

His work often centers on the anxieties and contradictions of the present, articulated through allegorical forms and the Taíno‑inspired To‑To series. Influences such as Ernst Barlach, Francisco de Goya, Edvard Munch, and Käthe Kollwitz inform the emotional depth and human resonance of his sculptures.

Oliva has been a member of UNEAC since 1987 and AIESM since 2008. In 2006, he received the Honors for Excellence, Contribution and Achievements in the Advancements of Fine Arts and Education from the Centro Cultural Hispano Americano and the University of Washington.