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For two decades Martin Machado has had his feet in two very different endeavors, that of the art world and of the maritime industry. His labor on the water has taken him around the globe on international containerships, commercial fishing vessels, and sailing boats. The ports and people he has worked alongside have become intertwined with the layers of his art, a visual story-telling which at times reaches back into the dark depths of maritime history.
Born 1980 in San Jose, CA Martin received a BFA in 2004 from UC Santa Barbara and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2007. He has resided in San Francisco since 2005. He has been a member of the Sailors Union of the Pacific since 2007 and the Kvichak Set-netters Association since 2006.
Martin's work has been shown internationally and has been featured in The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times Magazine, Juxtapoz, New American Paintings, and most recently The Surfer’s Journal.
artist’s statement
Like most artists, my art stems from my life. And like so many humans I have felt drawn to the sea since I can remember. As I am getting older that attraction is becoming blended more with fear and respect, but for most of my life I have had an unbridled yearning for adventure at sea. This desire took me to far away places on the decks of both modest sailboats and massive containerships. For over a decade I spent much of each year working as an “AB” or Able Bodied Sailor as a merchant mariner on international containerships. Climbing around the cavernous holds and towering container stacks of these modern feats of engineering, through all sorts of weather and sea states, feels like living in a science fiction reality. The size, strength, and efficiency of machinery in the worlds modern ports puts one’s human scale in check. Seeing this somewhat hidden side of society has changed the way I see the world forever.
I’ve also have had the privilege of being part of a commercial fishing community that gathers each summer in Bristol Bay Alaska to meet the salmon as they return to spawn. For nearly twenty seasons I have returned to run a small boat as a set-netter, a very low emissions, no bi-catch, style of fishing for wild salmon in the greatest natural fish run on earth. This fishery is being well managed to prioritize its sustainability for generations to come. The people that make up this community are vivacious and fiercely independent and replenish my soul on an annual basis.
My art works of course are not just about these two experiences, though they are often the jumping off points, it is not always even about the sea. My work is just as much about the forgetting of an experience, the blurring of time and place that happens within our memory. On this planet we are all sea-farers of sorts, navigating our way through our modern lives. In my work I aim to celebrate the human spirit, especially among working class communities, and evoke a sense of awe and respect for our natural world.