About the artist:

(b. Boquete, Chiriquí, 29 Aug 1950) Panamanian painter. Aliases: Octavio Toral; Tabo Torál Tabo Toral studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore in 1969 and at the Nova Scotia College of Art in Halifax from 1969 to 1971 before completing his education from 1971 to 1976 at the Escuela de Comunicación Social of the Universidad de Panamá. His first works were delicate and anecdotal drawings and etchings of mysterious, fairy-tale characters in fanciful surroundings. From the late 1970s he produced brightly coloured abstract paintings with gridlike substructures based on esoteric geometric relationships and inspired by Eastern philosophies; they were usually titled after the date on which they were finished. Toral moved to the USA in the early 1980s, where he changed to a figurative, neo-expressionist style and produced murals of semi-mechanical figures influenced by graffiti art. After returning to Panama in 1994, Toral explored new territory by combining the abstract geometric style of his earlier works with figurative elements, often human figures such as aborigines or bound women.