Add Fuel – Diogo Machado — Lisbon, Portugal

"I take a huge part of my inspiration from world patterns and scary things. My visual world Planet Fire has been described as a mix of happy, scary, weird and mostly ironic characters. I adorn all of this with a big dose of ornamental and very Portuguese elements and there you go, I have 'added fuel' right there. Having ideas and finding a way to make them so that the work has a ‘visual wow’, that is what it is all about."

Diogo Machado, also known as Add Fuel, is a Portuguese artist whose work is simple but colourful, weird but funny – and full of excitement. He combines fictional characters and decorative elements in a distinctive way to create an imaginary world. The visual complexity of his work is often demanding, as if offering some deeper meaning, yet whether they “get” this or not, he hopes that passers-by who view it in the streets, which he uses as his personal gallery, will have their lives brightened by it.