Kiara Aileen Machado was born in 1993 in Lynwood, California. She received her BFA with honors in Painting and Drawing from California State University Long Beach in 2018.
Machado’s cultural background as Guatemalan and Salvadoran is central to her work. Through this cultural framework, her work explores the complexities of intersecting identities and Central American diasporas in Southern California. Her work is critical of Mexican hegemony and strives to actively create a platform for Central Americans.
Her body of work brings into question the absence and exclusion of Central American folx from mainstream U.S. and Latinx narratives. Mainly working with oil on canvas, Machado combines cultural imagery and a diverse selection of plants with a vivid color palette. She obscures and camouflages the figures into the surrounding environment to create a narrative that highlights marginalized communities.
Machado has exhibited work throughout Southern California, including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Hollywood, Pomona, Highland Park, Compton, Baldwin Park, Irvine, San Pedro, and Playa Vista. Her work has also reached venues beyond California, including, University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida and Frederic Jameson Gallery at Duke University in North Carolina. Her work has also been recognized internationally as part of “Art Without Borders” in Florence, Italy. Machado’s artist-activist ethic has also recently motivated her participation in a collaborative mural with Central American migrants at the border wall between Tijuana and San Diego with the collective, Quetzal Migrante. She now lives and works out of San Gabriel Valley.
Machado’s cultural background as Guatemalan and Salvadoran is central to her work. Through this cultural framework, her work explores the complexities of intersecting identities and Central American diasporas in Southern California. Her work is critical of Mexican hegemony and strives to actively create a platform for Central Americans.
Her body of work brings into question the absence and exclusion of Central American folx from mainstream U.S. and Latinx narratives. Mainly working with oil on canvas, Machado combines cultural imagery and a diverse selection of plants with a vivid color palette. She obscures and camouflages the figures into the surrounding environment to create a narrative that highlights marginalized communities.
Machado has exhibited work throughout Southern California, including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Hollywood, Pomona, Highland Park, Compton, Baldwin Park, Irvine, San Pedro, and Playa Vista. Her work has also reached venues beyond California, including, University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida and Frederic Jameson Gallery at Duke University in North Carolina. Her work has also been recognized internationally as part of “Art Without Borders” in Florence, Italy. Machado’s artist-activist ethic has also recently motivated her participation in a collaborative mural with Central American migrants at the border wall between Tijuana and San Diego with the collective, Quetzal Migrante. She now lives and works out of San Gabriel Valley.
Selected publications:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7Fgmh2iHqQ1s0RH9LD3dzY?si=lmKLeVptSRa6bohpRtrmGw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-arVUftQ6Bg
http://eltecolote.org/content/en/arts_culture/central-american-resilience-identity-explored-in-latest-exhibit/
https://dichosdeunbicho.com/centro-ambulando-interview-with-kiara-machado/
http://digmagonline.com/blog/category/artistic-identity?rq=art
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7Fgmh2iHqQ1s0RH9LD3dzY?si=lmKLeVptSRa6bohpRtrmGw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-arVUftQ6Bg
http://eltecolote.org/content/en/arts_culture/central-american-resilience-identity-explored-in-latest-exhibit/
https://dichosdeunbicho.com/centro-ambulando-interview-with-kiara-machado/
http://digmagonline.com/blog/category/artistic-identity?rq=art