SERIES

ARTIST BIO

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Fernando Machado is a Doctor in Fine Arts from the Department of Painting at the UP Valencia. He initially worked as Professor of Plastic Arts and Design at the Valencia School of Design. Later, he worked as Professor of Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Altea at the Miguel Hernández University where he directed the Departmental Unit of Artistic Creation and Theory of Arts and created and coordinated the Doctorate program "The specificity of artistic knowledge".

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His artistic activity began with his first solo exhibition, held at the College of Architects of Valencia and Murcia in Valencia in 1975. Since then, many numerous solo and group exhibitions have followed, including exhibitions at the Charpa Gallery of Gandía and Valencia and those made for the Temple Gallery (later Tomás March) in Valencia.

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Throughout his career, Machado has participated in a variety of group exhibitions and has held individual exhibitions at the Palace of the Diputación Provincial of Málaga, the Caixa de Pensiones Foundation of Valencia, as well as the Biennials of Pontevedra and Oviedo, the Contemporary Art Biennial of Barcelona and the ARCO International Fair of Madrid in 1985.

On numerous occasions he has been selected to represent the contemporary art of the Valencian Community - highlighting his presence in the exhibition "Artists of the Mediterranean" of the Valencian Pavilion at the Universal Exhibition of Seville of 1992. He was also selected on other occasions highlighting that of "Plástica Valenciana Contemporánea" of the Palace of La Lonja in Valencia, "68 Valencian Plastics" in the Cultural Centre of the Villa de Madrid, and the "Modes de Ver" itinerant that passed through the Circle of Fine Arts of Madrid, the Mudéjar Palace of Seville, the Centre of Santa Monica Art of Barcelona and the Carmen Centre of the IVAM of Valencia.

Promoter and defender of collective and anonymous creation, Machado created the workshop Plastic Experimentation without artists, Tepsa, in 1990 which marked his later creative dedication.

He has obtained various awards and distinctions such as the scholarship of the Generalitat Valenciana for a stay in New York, the Vicente Roig Martínez award from the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Valencia, the Alfons Roig Grant from the Provincial Council of Valencia, and his work is included in collections such as the Diputación Provincial de Málaga, the Banco Exterior de España, the Diputación Provincial de Valencia and the La Caixa Foundation in Barcelona.

Machado´s work features in articles: "The form and the intelligible" of Juan Vicente Aliaga (magazine Lápiz nº52), "A vision of Valencian art" by Juan Manuel Bonet (Diario16, Madrid 11.III.1988), "Els asaigs de F Machado", The Guia nº 5 Barcelona by Román de La Calle, an article by K. Power in the catalog 15141 of Sala Parpalló, and a further article by Rafael Prats Rivelles in Diario Levante (5.VI. 1983). Pablo Ramírez discusses the artist in the magazine Lápiz nº 27 (Madrid) and Machado features in the documentary TVE program "La Edad de Oro," directed by Paloma Chamorro, which related to Machado´s exhibition entitled "Fracasando" held at the Temple gallery in Valencia.

When reflecting on his art, Machado makes reference to renowned philosopher Marshall McLuhan, who said, “The medium is the message.” In Machado´s own words: “Painting in and of itself is the important thing. However, the direct contemplation of it cannot be replaced by its photographic representation, because then the medium is no longer painting but photography and thus, the message is modified.”

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Machado works on the basis that the process of preparing a painting is what marks the way to conclude it. In his own words: “I deplore the work done with planned projects. Only perception and its deceptive reality mark its own laws.”

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“As an artist, I am looking for beauty, my own beauty. Understanding beauty as a well-defined concept, that is, a cognitive unit of meaning. To quote the poet Antonio Machado: “Walker, there is no path, the path is made by walking." / "Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar."