First Round

In his work Primer round (First Round), Salvador shows a neighborhood scuffle, depicting the moment after a verbal dispute that occurs between the two adolescents who start the street brawl. He took the title for the work from boxing vocabulary, suggesting that the confrontation has just begun and is only a small part of a continued action. Light plays an important role in all of his works, on this occasion illuminating the movement and gestures of the young men fighting in broad daylight.

The color of the shirt worn by the individual on the left side is a symbolic allusion to blood, an element that was present in his early works and which he later replaced, using it in some detail to soften the content’s drama. The painter substitutes this representation by applying red to objects that he would have painted with blood in his dark and violent stages. The piece belongs to the series Memorias en rojo (Memories in Red), based on the biographic construction of a character that from birth to death wore a piece of clothing that identified him by its color.