Whales and dolphins join the ranks of the free in Costa Rica, following a decree signed Saturday by President Oscar Arias protecting these marine mammals in all of Costa Rica's expansive ocean territory.

The decree forbids the “pursuit, capture, injury, netting or commercialization” of all whale and dolphin species on the country's expansive, 640,000 square-kilometer marine territory, the largest in Central America.

Arias waxed poetic about his move, likening it to Costa Rica's now half-century old decision to do away with the country's army.

“Today, we have another peace agreement to sign, and another military force to abolish: We must come to peace with our environment,” he said in a speech in Puerto Jiménez, overlooking well-known whale and dolphin-viewing hotspot Gulfo Dulce, in the southern zone. “We must abolish the forces that seek to destroy it, and today, with these actions, we have done our part.”

Environment Minister Roberto Dobles seconded Arias' commitment, stating that the country had proven once again that it was at the “forefront” of biodiversity protection worldwide.

While the decree makes the policy official, Costa Rica has traditionally never had a whale hunt, unlike nations such as Japan and Iceland, and dolphins have rarely been the target of commercial fishermen here.

Earlier this year, Dobles voted against reinstating a limited hunt worldwide, despite the pressure from the Japanese, at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Alaska.

Alonso Durán, 42, was on track to becoming an engineer but never finished his degree. Born in the Central Valley coffee town of Grecia, west of San José, Durán took up painting and graphic design at the University of Costa Rica, and this time, he finished.

However, despite the switch to creativity, Durán still has a highly active scientific and mathematical side of the brain.

“I've always been inspired by concepts of physics and mathematics,” he told The Tico Times.

Durán's new show, “Palimpsesto” opens tonight at 7 at the Amodeo Gallery – his first exhibition at the venue in the western San José neighborhood of Rohrmoser – and visitors there might get an impression of the science at work inside an artist's brain.

Of the 18 paintings, eight are mixed-media on paper and 10 are acrylic paint on canvas.

Durán was turned on to the “Lissajous figures,” he said, the curves and parabolic forms detailed in the mid-19th century by French mathematician Jules Antoine Lissajous.

“Horizontal waves and vertical waves meet to create a totally new, hybrid form,” he said describing some of the figures in his latest works. “I tried to paint them in one solid stroke, like Chinese writing, based on the continuous movement of the arm.”

In addition to Lissajous, Durán found art in layers, which is where the notion of the palimpsest, the exhibit's title, comes into play. A palimpsest is a manuscript page that has been written on, rubbed off, and then written on again. “But it always leaves a trace of what was there before,” Durán said.

In some cases, the artist took digital prints and brushed over them with a layer of white acrylic paint, only to begin illustrating on top again.

“My work uses a lot of transparency, with layer on top of layer; but still, the original work shows through below,” he said.

Durán has previously showed his work in such San José spaces as the Children's Museum's National Gallery and the National Theater's Joaquín García Monje Gallery, as well as in Cuba, El Salvador and the U.S. state of California.

On show at Amadeo through Feb. 10, the Costa Rican artist's work is going for anywhere from $250, for smaller works on paper, up to $3,000 for larger, canvas paintings.

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