symbolism, iconography and the "painted word" as the key elements to his compositions. These words and images are loaded with a synergy all their own. Padrino is able to translate a raw display of emotion into a diction one can only describe as a cool detachment.

'Losiada' (1995), his first breakthrough painting, sets the tone of content and symbolism that have been consistent throughout his career. These themes are no accident; as a young boy, Anibal spent more than three years living in the dense rain forest of Puerto Rico ; Simple daily activities of life all had to be harvested from his surroundings. This experience left a certain recognizance with the young boy; he has a sense of calm and reflection about him that he is able to traduce onto his canvas.

It was on a later visit to his father, then living in Vieques, that Anibal came face to face with the Puerto Rican struggle of asserted nationalism. He

his transformation.

Both canvases have a definitively similar tone to the technical mannerisms of 'The Drunkards'. Found in early writing, 'The Drunkards' has been described as, "portraits of rustics and beggars, a company recruited from a picturesque rabble: where each head, with its brick-dust tint and sunburnt skin, is superbly forceful and brilliant; the bodies of the two half-clad lads are splendid bits. But, as a whole, the picture is cloudy... and characterized by a crass sensuality." 'Spanish Fly' , unlike its counterpart 'Remix', is completely monotone; the paint itself, recalls the artist, mainly consists of a color called 'Caucasian Flesh Tone'. Its usage lends itself to the description of heaviness in 'The Drunkards ' and eludes sensuality. The treatment by the artist to employ a The treatment by the artist to employ a form of anagrams as the focal point masterfully draws a comparative to the original while simultaneously creating a subvergent path of newness. In consequential series form, the use and study of the 'Spanish Fly' anagram will lead Padrino

twentieth century.

In many of his works from the early part of the millennium, Padrino looked to language itself as a tool, or better said, as a weapon. He refers to his style as "Post-Contemporary Vandalism", which is best described as a physically non-violent movement of creative assertion. He argues that visual communication is the predominate language of the new global world. The word to him is a visual image. Used through out all facets of contemporary culture, words, tag lines and slogans are simply tools orchestrated in advertising and communications. Padrino believes that those those said facets have hijacked our very imagination. Words and images he believes, along with their binding emotions, have been illegitimately attached to products and corporations, and left without a means of recapturing their essence. Conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner echoed those sentiments when he said, "With out language there is no art".

The gradual consideration of the "word" naturally occurred to Padrino who had now (2002-2003) begun to look beyond the iconic figure as the focal

point in the pictorial drama of his pictures. It was during this period that the artist spent obscene amounts of time painting and printing small paper works that had an immediacy which, to the artist, felt more like the act of writing. The entire body of paper works expanded on the notion of word play, anagrams, and introduced the mode of succession into his work. These are variations of the pictures he has painted that he calls " authentic replicas". By reversing the tradition of paper study - to canvas progression, Padrino discovered that he was able to elaborate and alter the meaning of the original work. It became a form of poetry to him, an act of free association with words and images.

At the turn of the century poetry and typography were merged into a visual and emotional play on language. Beginning with Appollinaire's "Calligrammes", the shift towards a poetry that could tap into greater modes of thought and perception gave way to what would eventually be

allowing the viewer to fill in the gaps of information, inviting the viewer to participate in the creation of the work by asking them to read between the lines of association. In this body of work he is able to create a contextual framework that is not bound to literal definition. Hunger for example is a word pregnant with meaning. To hunger for fame, for love, for substance, to be hungry, to feed hunger. For the painter it becomes an act of writing a sentence with only one word, a shorthand version of a totality condensed into the visual equivalent of a sound bite. To take one by the hand but not lead is a radical alternative to a narrative. By confronting the viewer within this guise it requires a different kind of attention and mental participation on their part.

Enabled with an arsenal of strategies and a defining style, the artist finds he can marry both process and subject, painted word and narrative figure, although the subject has become increasingly more acerbic. Canvases such as "Soap", "Radio Free

twenty canvases and countless drawings, created during a dynamic and sensational period (1999-2004) Within those canvases several themes emerged. Among the most aggressive were paintings and images that spoke not only of the quality of urban daily life but of the parallel existence of language and perception.

Padrino's work functions much like a wordsmith's: his pieces demand to be read as much as they are seen. Ironically, titling his work is a complicated matter--how to summarize without being overly descriptive? The titles must be as vivid as the narrative of the canvas. Fittingly, Padrino's technical leanings most utilize form ,

was keenly aware of the usage by the separatist movement to evoke passion and sympathy to their cause thru the use of symbols. On roadsides he would come across the hastily spray-painted flag that has come to symbolize the independence movement of the island. While he does not sympathize with the political ambitions of the movement, he was impressed by the idea of the visual icon as a weapon of dissent, an idea he saw as having parallels to what was happening on NYC's subway system. He photographed the spray painted flag and upon returning to New York painted 'Losiada', a work the artist describes as " a hooligan version of Jasper Johns' Flag paintings."

Prior to Padrino's return trip to Puerto Rico, the then 18-year old artist withdrew from art-college after one semester, finding the experience "extremely academic", and recalls feeling

directionless. A turning point in his career was meeting Michael Holman and Michael Cotton, who eventually gave Padrino his first solo show in 1992 at his salon/gallery in Chelsea. Both gentlemen were much his senior and were well established as key figures of the Downtown LES scene in the late 70's and early 80's. Cotton was a member of a well-known new-wave band called 'The Tubes' . Holman was a member in an experimental sound band called 'Grey' with painter Jean Michele Basquiat, who later came to personify the art scene of the 80s. They'd play at two major venues, The Mudd Club and Club 57, which were described as "eclectic, inclusive, and schizophrenic." It was through Michael Cotton that Padrino was exposed to the world of exhibition, a world previously unknown to him. But it was through Holman that Padrino learned about the 80's art scene and its affiliations to Hip-Hop and Punk music. Around this time that Holman began Douglas Singleton; "That 80's Show" New York: Lmagazine critique September 2004 writing a screenplay based on the life of Jean Michel Basquiat that was later sold outright to Julian Schnabel

and made into a Hollywood film in 1996. Being privileged to the raw footage Padrino was impressed by Basquiats' life and work. Padrino came to realize that painting was the vehicle for self-expression he had been looking for.

An internal battled ensued in Padrino between the late 90s and the beginning of the new millennium, as he sought to expand upon the genius of 'Loisaida' . Towards the end of 2000, beginning with 'Spanish Fly' and later on in 'Spanish Fly Remix' , which both pay homage to Diego Velazquez's 1628 masterpiece 'Bacchus' or 'The Drunkards', the artist began to come upon a voice of his own. Here Padrino begins to employ that argent and exquisitely limpid tone which he will over time make more poignant and fluid, and this will become a great source of his paintings and the chief agent of

to further works and exploration of his "painted word"

Despite its glib and sexually allusive titles, these pictures deal with very real subjects. 'Spanish Fly Remix' depicts the face of Che Guevarra, a revolutionary leader of Cuba's communist revolution, and a kneeling Christ like male who's who's thorns are replaced by a crown of wreathes, and an extraordinary large sheriff star and dagger looming over the two figures. The symbolism of the two objects especially seems to pronounce the ongoing secular argument of the here and now vs. the here after. By Che placing his arm on the Christ like subjects head it is as if an allegiance has been transferred, if not won, by the spirit over the dogmatic. However, the dagger serves as a reminder that treason lurks, much like death, in every man's path to greatness. Like Velazquez's monumental painting Padrino's works brings to mind the reaction against the idealist system that had become fashionable in the beginning of the eighteenth century and continued on into the

known as ' concrete poetry'. Changing forever the usage of type, Italian poet F. T. Marinetti, published papers called " The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism" where he goes on to say, "I (Marinetti) am against what is known as the harmony of a setti different typefaces. We shall represent hasty perceptions in italic and express a scream in bold type, ... a new painterly typographic representation will be born on the printed page." Anibal sought to capture similar emotive qualities in his word pictures. In retrospect, the artist attests that it was an experimental, incomplete and gyrating series that he continues to return to. At one point he notes "Painting words almost seem loud."

In pictures such as " Hunger" , " Thirst" and " Wino" he plays with the notions of the ellipses found in Japanese Haikus. They are virtually void of grammatical structure, but are understood by the reading audience thru the juxtapositioning of letter and image,

Moses", "Sacred Logos", and "Pale Male" all represent an uncertain world where perceptions are interrupted and the conceptual, as well as accepted truths, remain unattainable. Using information and misinformation against themselves, citing mass published references, and harvesting independent thinking, the artist is able to take a hushed private conversation into the arena of public discourse.

It is that persistent complexity of artists such as Anibal Padrino that is admired by many. His demand for time, for thought, for discussion. To be able to step inside a void armed only with insight can produce an awareness into reality that will encourage the dialogue necessary to the evolutionary progress of consciousness man is waiting for.