Born in Medellín, Colombia, Esteban Patino is an Atlanta-based artist whose work explores the multitudes of language creation and perception. Spanning sculpture, collage, painting and murals, the concepts of transmission, reception, communication vs. miscommunication, and semiotics permeate his work. In order to consider these questions he created a system of symbols that are based on 6 characters, each of which rotate on their own axis 4 times to make a total of 24 characters. With these shapes—which are an alphabet that creates the illusion of language—he plays with word structures by creating palindromes, speech bubbles, heaps of language, and metaphors to represent how we understand written and spoken language.​Aesthetically, each iteration of Esteban’s language study is distinct: his sculptures are sinuous sentinels, seeking symbolic approximation to atemporality and the possibility of universal shapes; his collages are humanoid bricolages, amorphous inquisitive monsters that portray the complexities of time and human existence; his paintings are deeply intuitive forms that awaken on the canvas, often drawing on the colors and landscapes of his native Colombia. However distinct, these styles are deeply in concert with one another—forming his praxis and pushing to (re)consider the multifarious nature of words as symbols with infinite idiosyncratic interpretations.