Artwork Description
Modular Silkscreen Print by Add Fuel x Shepard Fairey- OBEY Hand-Pulled on Cream Speckletone Fine Art Paper Limited Edition Artwork Obey Pop Culture Artist.
2022 Signed & Numbered Limited Edition of 500 Artwork Size 18x24 Silkscreen Print
"Diogo Machado aka ADD FUEL’s art functions on several levels literally and metaphorically. His pieces master the aesthetics of traditional Portuguese tile work while adding his own playful character illustrations subversively woven into the designs. These two seemingly disparate styles are so elegantly blended together that discovering the oddity within the harmony is both bizarre and joyful. The actual and faux rips ADD FUEL incorporates into his art are more than just a nod to paper, the common material of modern street art, they’re also a provocative bit of visual dissonance since tiles don’t rip. Despite the incongruity of tiles and rips, ADD FUEL’s visually seductive compositions evoke a sense of time passed and a story behind each layer." -Shepard Fairey- OBEY
Modular by Add Fuel x Shepard Fairey – Obey Collaborative Silkscreen in Street Pop Art & Graffiti Artwork
Modular is a 2022 collaborative silkscreen print created by Portuguese artist Diogo Machado, known as Add Fuel, and American artist Shepard Fairey, the founder of OBEY. Hand-pulled on cream Speckletone fine art paper and released in a signed and numbered limited edition of 500, this 18 x 24 inch artwork exemplifies the synergy between ornamental heritage and contemporary visual resistance. The print layers traditional azulejo tile motifs, signature to Add Fuel’s practice, with Fairey’s distinct iconography and compositional balance. Faux paper rips tear through the layers, revealing dynamic juxtapositions of classic pattern, modern pop abstraction, and a central floral mandala infused with Fairey’s visual politics. The piece vibrates with blue, red, and white tonalities, echoing the dual themes of beauty and disruption at the core of their shared visual vocabulary.
Tile Motifs, Illusion, and Layered History
Add Fuel’s approach to traditional Portuguese tile work is at once reverent and subversive. By reinterpreting the symmetrical elegance of ceramic motifs with unexpected figures and graphic elements, he modernizes a centuries-old medium while injecting it with conceptual humor and narrative depth. In Modular, the faux rips slice through the precision of the tiles to expose underlying designs, mimicking the distressed layering often found in urban environments. These rips are visual contradictions—tiles do not tear—yet they ground the piece in the material reality of street posters, wheatpastes, and handbills. The effect suggests a story unfolding across time, where aesthetics are built upon each other, scraped away, and reassembled to create a living history. This illusion invites the viewer to peel back their own assumptions about permanence, tradition, and identity.
Shepard Fairey’s Integration and Urban Influence
Shepard Fairey’s signature influence is woven into the modular structure of the work through the inclusion of bold geometric symbology and red-toned central focal points. Known for his OBEY Giant campaign and the Hope poster for Barack Obama, Fairey brings a sharply honed graphic instinct to this collaboration. His presence in Modular is not dominant but seamlessly integrated, allowing the dialogue between his political design language and Add Fuel’s ornamental fluency to unfold in harmony. The composition carries Fairey’s commitment to layering, repetition, and symbolic forms of power, contributing to the conceptual weight of the piece without overpowering the decorative base. It is a rare fusion of design-minded street art and historic pattern making, emblematic of Fairey’s mission to preserve message within form.
Craftsmanship and Concept in Street Pop Art & Graffiti Artwork
This silkscreen print was meticulously crafted using multiple layers of ink on Speckletone paper, a choice that echoes the street origins of both artists’ practices while elevating the final result to gallery standards. Modular’s formal tension between classic ornament and pop symbolism makes it a quintessential example of contemporary Street Pop Art & Graffiti Artwork. It reflects an evolving aesthetic where collaboration expands meaning, and where cultural pasts are not preserved in silence but animated through visual intervention. For collectors and viewers, Modular offers a tactile and symbolic experience—a print that holds the precision of tradition and the urgency of the present in perfect contradiction. It stands as a testament to the transformative power of surface, story, and subversion.
