Tomás Espina was born in Buenos Aires in 1975; as a child and adolescent, he and his family lived in Mexico, Mozambique, Santiago (Chile), and Córdoba (Argentina). In 1997, he moved to Buenos Aires to study painting at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón (now the Universidad Nacional de Arte, UNA), from which he graduated in 2005. He has been awarded grants from the Secretaría de Cultura de la Nación (ACA) and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the United States (2004). Major prizes received include first prize at the sixth edition of Petrobras/arteBA, Buenos Aires (2009); third prize at Premio Cultural Chandon, San Miguel de Tucumán (2005); and second prize at Premio Fundación Banco Ciudad, Buenos Aires (2002). He was named Artist of the Year in 2002 by the Asociación Argentina de Críticos de Arte, and New Artist of the Year in 2002. In 2011, he participated in the MAC VAL residency in France and in Art Omi in the United States. He is an agent of the Centro de Investigaciones Artisticas (CIA).
In 2010, Pira, a book featuring a selection of works produced from 2001 to 2010, was published.
In 2018, he—along with Florencia Rodríguez Giles—was named a professor at Artistas x Artistas, an artists’ education program run by Fundación El Mirador, and at Programa de Artistas PAC.
At the invitation of Plataforma Fluorecente, curated by Matías Umpiérrez, and in keeping with a handbook commissioned to Paul B. Preciado, he and Natalia Di Cienzo presented El Retino en una Cula (Dramaturgia para una conferencia) in 2019 at the Festival Internacional de Dramaturgia, a co-production with the twelfth edition of the Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires.