Two weeks ago, Chris Savido, who grew up in the Pittsburgh suburbs, was just another young artist in New York City trying to get by, working a day job at a jewelry store and painting in his free time.

One painting changed all that.

	Mary Altaffer, Associated Press Artist Chris Savido with his painting "Bush Monkeys," an acrylic-on-canvas portrait of President Bush made of monkeys, at an East Village gallery in New York. Click photo for larger image.

"Bush Monkeys," a portrait of the president made up of dozens of primates swimming in a marsh, enraged the manager of a upscale market with gallery space in lower Manhattan, pushing him to shut down the entire 60-piece show last weekend.

Savido, 23, became a one-man First Amendment cause overnight.

Digital images of the painting have been distributed on the Internet by media outlets across the world, from Reuters to the New York Times to Al Jazeera to an Australian radio station.

"It's pretty wild," Savido said. "It's one of those one in a million things."

Savido, who was born in Wilkinsburg and grew up in Churchill, started drawing at an early age, and art has been his focus ever since.In high school, he took art courses at Carnegie Mellon and the Center for the Arts in Shadyside.

After graduating from Syracuse University in New York, where he studied illustration, Savido moved to New York City to find work.

Many of his paintings are surreal depictions of dream-like landscapes filled with monstrous creatures. A few are on display at the Shadow Lounge in East Liberty, which is owned by a cousin, and Mad Max Tattoo in Mount Oliver, which has a print of "Bush Monkeys."

The Bush portrait, he said, stemmed from his frustration with the president's mixing of religion and politics and the war in Iraq, where three of his Pittsburgh friends are serving in the military.

"I felt powerless," he said. "I wanted to do something with symbolism to get people to think."

In the painting, Bush's eyes, nostrils, lips, and hair are swarming with chimpanzees, a reference to the "shared biological ancestry of all humanity," Savido writes on his Web site, www.workmade.com.

	Chris Savido's "Bush Monkeys" Click photo for larger image.

Savido spent more than 60 hours working on the portrait, and the publishers of Animal Magazine, a publication for emerging artists, decided to feature "Bush Monkeys" in the latest issue.

They also decided to put the painting on display at a show at the Chelsea Market public space, with a list price of $3,500.

Bucky Turco, the show's organizer, said he let a director at the market see all the paintings weeks before the opening and he heard no complaints.

On Dec. 8, however, the day before the exhibit opened, a manager called Turco and said a Bush supporter had threatened to boycott the market if Savido's painting was not taken down.

Turco removed the painting, but he decided to put it back up for the exhibition's opening, which attracted more than 2,000 people.

When the market manager saw the painting, he ended the party. The following Saturday, Turco said, "I got a call and they told me, 'You need to take down this show today, otherwise we're seizing the art and you're going to get arrested.'"

A Chelsea Market representative could not be reached for comment.

Turco did as he was told, but he also called a local television station. Soon, dozens of television crews and newspaper reporters descended on the market, and word of the incident quickly spread.

The 18-by-24-inch painting is now on display at Animal's small gallery in the East Village, but Turco and Savido are hoping to find a bigger gallery space soon. A group of volunteer lawyers that help artists have offered to assist them.

"Everybody's work came down because of my painting," Savido said. "That's not fair. This is our livelihood."

In the meantime, the soft-spoken artist is trying to adjust to the media spotlight. He's received many e-mail messages from both Bush supporters and detractors.

"People want to make it a partisan thing," he said. "Whatever their agenda, they want to skew it that way."

Savido has decided to auction the painting, and he is thinking about giving some of the money to a free speech organization. But, not willing to back down from controversy, he's also considering using the money to buy bulletproof vests for soldiers in Iraq.

And he has no intention of moderating the images in his future paintings. "I'll still paint what I feel," he said. "I've never been one to shy away from expressing what I think, and that's not going to change."