Francis Acea

Francis Acea uses art primarily to explore the way culture is valued in the capitalist system. The Cuban artist, who got his start as part of the Ordo Amoris Cabinet collective, creates acrylic-on-paper works that call to mind the visual language of street art, with graphic, cartoonish icons such as a dollar sign with devil horns and businessmen silhouetted against golden backgrounds. While Acea exists in a lineage of artists—beginning with Andy Warhol—who have blurred the line between art and commerce, Acea takes a darker look at the culture business in works like Gold Matter, which transforms the human brain into a commodity.