Romel Padilla (20th Century) Filipino/American, Large Abstract Oil on Canvas. Indistinct vertical writing on right side of painting in cursive (part of image). Tape on back dates painting to 80s and attributes the work. 

Overall: 51 1/2 X 58 3/4 in. 

Sight: 47 3/4 X 55 in. 

#3969 . 

Romel Padilla was a Filipino artist who came to America in the 1970s. He exhibited alongside many of the artists in the Mission District of San Francisco in the 1980s. Along with other Filipino and gay artists like Rene de Guzman, Johanna Poethig, Terry Acebo Davis, Reanne Estrada, and Rico Reyes, he created DIWA Arts in 1986, a coalition to build ties within the community and support those who were losing loved ones to HIV.  His installation “I Used To Be” was exhibited in San Jose to commemorate World Aids Day in 1995. The DIWA exhibited at the Euphrat Museum of Art in 1996, and their Bayanihan Transition Project in 1998 throughout the San Francisco Bay Area attempted to demonstrate the gay Filipino subculture present but often hidden with the depiction of a traditional religious pageant that occurs in the Philippines each year. The performance included the satiric depiction of four saints and other rituals from Filipino culture, with Padilla giving interviews to express the importance and usage of “camp” in art to define queerness and engage other communities with it using humor, shock, and introspection. Although little is known of Padilla’s childhood or what became of him in the 21st Century, surviving DIWA members continue to create art and exhibit throughout California, encouraging a new generation of Filipino-American artists to explore their creativity in a safe and nurturing environment, ensuring his legacy.