Add Fuel

ADD FUEL (Portugal, 1980).
Untitled.2020.
Gel ink on ceramic, layered.
Unique piece.
Signed and dated on the back.
Measurements: 75,5 x 75,5 cm; 82,5 x 82,5 cm (frame).

Add Fuel is the Portuguese visual artist and illustrator Diogo Machado. Graduated in Graphic Design at IADE (Institute of Visual Arts, Design and Marketing) in Lisbon, he spent some years working in design studios in Portugal, followed by an eight-month stay in Munich (Germany). Since 2007, he focuses exclusively on his artistic work. Under the full name Add Fuel to the Fire, he first created a dark but exuberant visual universe, populated by a cast of slimy, eccentric and joyful creatures, influenced by a variety of interests ranging from video games to comics, animation, science fiction, low-budget B-movies, designer toys and urban visual culture. In 2008, fascinated by the aesthetic possibilities of symmetrical patterns and tessellations, he shortened his name and began to redirect his focus towards working with and reinterpreting the language of traditional tile design, and Portuguese tin-glazed ceramic tile in particular. Effortlessly blending these two seemingly irreconcilable visual languages, his current practice seeks to combine traditional decorative elements with contemporary visual references in new forms that reveal an impressive complexity and masterful attention to detail. If, at first glance, his work in small and medium-sized tile panels, large-scale stencil-painted murals and print editions may appear to be a simple pastiche of classical formalism, closer inspection rewards the viewer with a chaotic world of unmistakably original motifs and characters brimming with irony and humor. Creating balance and harmony from symmetrical repetitions, an accumulation of layers and visual illusion techniques such as trompe-l'œil, his multi-layered patterned compositions produce a poetic rhythm that plays with the viewer's perception and (multiple) possibilities for interpretation. Exploring a wide range of manual and digital techniques in the fields of drawing, painting, ceramics and printmaking, his practice expresses a sophisticated dialogue between old and new, between heritage and modernity. In addition to the numerous public art interventions he has made in several countries, he has also exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions at reputable galleries, such as Underdogs Gallery (Lisbon, 2017 and 2014), Saatchi Gallery (London, 2017), Nuart Gallery (Stavanger, 2017), ABV Gallery (Atlanta, 2017), Colab Gallery (Weil am Rhein, 2015), Galerie SOON (Zurich, 2013) and Pure Evil Gallery (London, 2012), and at prominent urban art events such as Nuart Festival (Aberdeen, 2017; Stavanger, 2016), PUBLIC'16 (Perth and Albany, 2016), Sacramento Mural Fest (Sacramento, 2016), Forgotten Project (Rome, 2015), Djerbahood (Djerba, 2014), and Tour Paris 13 (Paris, 2013), among many others.