ADD FUEL is the artistic persona of Diogo Machado, a Portuguese visual artist born in 1980. Machado graduated with a degree in Graphic Design from Lisbon's IADE – Creative University. After working in design studios in Portugal for several years, he spent eight months in Munich, Germany, before fully dedicating himself to his artistic endeavors starting in 2007.

Originally known as Add Fuel to the Fire, Machado established a distinct visual style characterized by a dark yet vibrant universe populated by a cast of eccentric, joyful creatures. His influences range from video games, comics, and animation to sci-fi, designer toys, and urban visual culture.

In 2008, drawn to the aesthetic possibilities of symmetrical patterning and tessellations, Machado shortened his moniker to Add Fuel and began exploring and reinterpreting traditional tile design, particularly the Portuguese tin-glazed ceramic azulejo. His current artistic practice seamlessly merges traditional decorative elements with contemporary visual cues, resulting in new forms that showcase remarkable complexity and meticulous attention to detail.

While his work may initially appear to be a homage to classic formalism, closer examination reveals a chaotic world of original motifs and characters filled with deep emotions. Machado's compositions utilize symmetrical repetitions, layering techniques, and visual illusions such as trompe-l'œil to create a poetic rhythm that engages viewers and invites multiple interpretations.

Machado's artistic exploration spans a broad spectrum of manual and digital techniques, encompassing drawing, painting, ceramics, and printing. His practice represents a sophisticated dialogue between the past and present, bridging heritage with modernity.

In addition to numerous public art projects in various countries, Machado's work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at esteemed galleries and museums worldwide.

Diogo Machado currently resides and works in Cascais, Portugal.

Add Fuel

Portuguese

What now seems like a lifetime but is merely a decade ago I sat slumped at my desk, head on arm pushing a pencil round a piece of paper dreaming up ways to kill time and break the chains holding me to my desk, Monday to Friday each day became the same and I was eating my brain.

Then one day whilst dreaming up further ideas in the series of ‘Ways to kill time’ the pencil lines on the pad started to become characters, strange and dysfunctional they formed my dysfunctional world which had no rule. Slowly I figured the pencil could be replaced with a marker pen (the Pentel N50 to be exact) and the paper replaced with cheap vinyl which was acquired from DIY stores, these characters once resigned to a life on paper filed in a folder under ‘Not suitable for visual consumption’ began to have a life of their own; adhered to lamp post and electrical boxes they plotted and linked my route home, one became 10 and slowly 10 became more than I can remember. Each evening and as much of the day as I could rob was spent drawing and cutting out stickers. Stickers became posters, posters became more ambitious and somewhere in between I quit my job or maybe that was I got fired, either way the inevitable had happened. Like a river cuts it’s own path, I’d cut mine.

This family of dysfunctional characters began evolve, they started to satirise and hold to ransom all that fell into their grasp, a welcome jolt of subversion in today’s media-saturated environment, the very same thing I’d grown up on. Bank notes were drawn and printed over and put into circulation for the unsuspecting to receive in their change, billboards taken over with public service announcements. I wanted to encourage people to not just to ‘see’, but to look at what surrounds them and their lives, reflecting our increasingly bizarre popular culture, re-thinking and reworking cultural figures and genres to comment on our ethos of conspicuous consumption. A Pandora’s box of bittersweet delights, sweet and sugary on the surface, but with an unfamiliar, uncomfortable, taste beneath.

This isn’t the beginning, it’s not the end it’s happy never ending.