Avelino Sala: Action Riot Paintings

Spanish artist Avelino Sala reflects on identity through symbols such as money currency or flags, the power of the symbol and how it can be deconstructed and generate new ways of understanding.
Through works such as El mapa no es el territorio (The map is not the territory), Quick Silver, Forbes List or Action Riot Paintings, the artist calls into question the idea of nation and power, national identity, money as a symbol and its real influence.
Through the Action Riot Paintings, Sala makes some sculptures with riot shields, with deconstructed country flags on them. The U.S. flag appears in three acts, as the axis of his proposal, as well as those of the first world economic powers: China, Germany, or those countries within the U.S. borders like Mexico.
In Quick Silver and El mapa no es el territorio, Sala questions money as another object of identity as much as a way of life. In Quick Silver, the reproductions of the bills are made of plants and the stain is the “diluted” flag. In short, a body of work linked to resistance from art, and especially to questioning our time from a different perspective, less friendly but poetic at the same time.
About Avelino Sala
Avelino Sala (Gijón, 1972) is an artist, commissioner and editor (Sublime magazine). In addition, he writes in various media about current art. In 2001 he obtained his Bachelor in Arts (BA, Hons degree) in Critical Art Practice at the University of Brighton.
He currently lives and works in Barcelona. His work as an artist has led him to question the cultural and social reality from a late-romantic perspective, with a critical look, exploring the social imaginary.