Description:

This series of octagonal woodcuts, printed on a variety of papers fixed to plastic, with verses following the plena’s traditional pattern of versification, the octosyllabic line, portray today’s Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and worldwide panorama, with figures from both the past and present (the Pope), the island (the snow-cone vendor), and the United States (the president), from the arts (the mask-maker), the professions (the judge), and the military (the soldier) — in a word, a kaleidoscope as lethal as it is colorful, as rhetorical as it is critical.

Antonio Martorell, born in Santurce, Puerto Rico in 1939. He keeps his workshop in La Playa de Ponce. Has been artist-in-residence for more than 30 years at the University of Puerto Rico in Cayey. He keeps busy at painting, drawing, installation and performance art, graphics, set and costume design, theatre, films, TV, radio, writing for the press, and as a writer.