Enrique Machado

Enrique Machado is an American artist, born in Miami, Florida, in 1985, who lives and works in the city. He is recognized for his innovative use of silicone, resin, acrylic and oil on wood, and his work explores the essential role of water as a life-sustaining force, both materially and conceptually. The fluidity of his medium evokes the dynamic, ever-changing nature of water, while his lines, often inspired by stock market charts, suggest the unpredictability of currents and the continuous flow of life itself.

Machado's art education began in the fourth grade, when he was encouraged to apply for the Visual Arts Magnet Program at South Miami Elementary School. He went on to the magnet art program at South Miami Middle School and to Design and Architecture High School, graduated from the New World School of the Arts in 2004, and was awarded a scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute, where he joined the sculpture department, which gave him the platform and freedom to explore different materials.

In 2007 he discovered a new passion for silicone and resins, intrigued by their slick textures and the organic strings of rubber. Combining his passion for painting with his curiosity about the material, he traded the paintbrush for a caulk gun. Painting with silicone and resin became an obsession, and the act of painting took on new meaning as a performance in its own right; over the years he has experimented with different application techniques, working on ample surfaces and in environmental urban murals. A sculptor by training who crossed the border into painting, he remains a mind constantly thinking about the possibilities of the three-dimensional. His paintings are marked by the trace, texture and feel of silicone, and the territories formed by its traces, forms and color patterns carry their own history and vitality. Spiral and labyrinth patterns, ancestral symbols of mythological and religious significance, appear in many works, such as Tunnel Wave #2, and his bodies of work include the Wave Series, the Crash Series and the Running Water Series.

For Machado, art fuses scientific exploration with metaphorical depth. Operating as both artist and scientist, with his studio as a creative lab, he uses a distinctive abstract style to provoke reflection on the significance of water, and he draws inspiration from Miami's diverse global mix of cultures. He treats art history as a key reference, studying Van Gogh and Jeff Koons side by side, and tries to learn from history in parallel with the world he lives in, half local, half global.

Museologist and curator Jorge Luis Gutierrez, Director of Triennial Miami, has written about his work in the essay Enrique Machado: Archetypes on the Dream of Elements, which places his use of silicone alongside Ron Mueck, Sam Jinks, Cosmo Wenman and Daniel Widrig and likens his unorthodox approach to painting to Jackson Pollock. Independent art critic Carlos Suarez De Jesus and Miami artist Sergio Garcia have also written essays on him, and his style was featured in the Miami New Times in August 2014 under the title Summertime Art Geniuses. Machado has shown at Spectrum Miami during Art Basel week, the Coral Gables Museum, the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach and Miami galleries including LMNT Gallery, Gallery 212, Gallery 1310, The Hangar Gallery, Ave 74 Gallery, Flagler Art Space Gallery and Buena Vista Gallery, and since 2016 he has exhibited regularly with Aldo Castillo Gallery in Estero, Florida, at Spectrum Miami and at Art Miami.