Inara Verzemnieks

THE OREGONIAN

Santana, who had traveled from Venezuela at the invitation of the
Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, has been painting for more than 30 years and is part of a muralist brigade in the 23 de enero, or January 23rd, neighborhood of western Caracas, where public murals have long been an important tool of community expression.

"It's a way to gather the feelings of a community and put it on the
walls," Santana explained a few hours before the talk, as he hung out in PCASC's Burnside office, preparing for the first in series of murals that he intended to paint around Portland during his stay.

Now, a few hours later, he was standing on a stage in the Musicians' Union Hall, which volunteers from PCASC had decorated with balloons and crepe paper in the colors of the Venezuelan flag.

Andreina Velasco, an international student at Reed College who had
met Santana while home in Venezuela on a recent break, and who helped arrange his visit to Oregon in the hopes of fostering the spirit of public political artworks like Santana's in Portland, introduced him.

When Santana arrived in Portland, Velasco said, the first thing he
spotted as he left the airport was a huge expanse of blank wall. "He said, 'Oooh, that makes me hungry.' "

Then Santana took the microphone, and, as Velasco translated, he
talked the room through several slides of his neighborhood and his work. "Part of what the muralist brigade is trying to do is integrate the community into a battle that isn't an armed struggle, but a cultural struggle," he said.

He showed the crowd a slide of what he called his "vindicating art"
--large, wall-sized portraits of men who had died as a result of "organized crime or state repression."

All the murals are designed by the muralist brigade, which
identifies the needs of the community, then tries to come up with the best way to express that though art, Santana explained.

His portrait of Che Guevara, five stories high, along with the quote "We will never return to the past!," as well as his 88-foot mural of Venezuelan heroes wrapped around a water tower, drew appreciative gasps from some of the audience, which included members of Portland's own mural community.

"They did that in three days," Velasco said of the Che mural. "So
they work very fast!"

They've had to learn to work fast over the years, Santana said,
trying to stay ahead of governments that weren't too thrilled to see opposing viewpoints get such visibility.

He called it "hit and run."

"To all the artists here, it is important to stand up and struggle," Santana said. "Sometimes you have to paint a mural and go to jail. When I talk to the artists, it's because I've had to do it. Either I succeed, or I die."