the Artist
My name is Vitor Machado Lira, I'm from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil and I belong to a lineage of Iberian explorers, enslaved peoples from central and west Africa, and Tupi-Guarani natives of South America.
My artistic practice originates from my fascination with a wide range of life forms and contemplative practices, spanning three decades of:
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observing, researching, and drawing wildlife
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immersing myself in diverse spiritual traditions
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volunteering for animal and social welfare organizations
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studying philosophy and Religion (Bachelor of Arts, Cum Laude, Marist College - Poughkeepsie, NY, 2010-14) to understand why people choose to live the way they do
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Studying environmental Justice and Behavior, education and communication (Master of Science, Magna Cum Laude, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI, 2014-16) to understand how people's choices impact themselves and others
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facilitating community engagement activities for sustainability projects in California (Circlepoint, 2016-22)
Given wings by Therezinha Veiga at Passaredo, My style is Influenced by Banksy, Faith XLVII, Nicholas Galanin, and Paul Nicklen.
My work is characterized by non-human animals as messengers of timeless wisdom, scientific evidence, spiritual insights, thoughtful wordplay, and fair criticism of the "wise" man.
I work on multiple media (from pencil drawing on paper to painting murals, digital illustration and printmaking) and, as often as possible, I seek to collaborate with others (from peripheral graffiti artists and jewelry makers to closeted poets and daydreamers).
I'm interested in using my skillset to support reparative initiatives (from non-human animal intelligence research and animal welfare campaigns to non-dogmatic contemplative practices and ecocentric reform).
In every step, I aim to be gratefully bear witness to and gracefully share profound teachings of life, thereby being a vehicle of levity, weaving a meaningful past, and cultivating harmonious communities for the future.​
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the Project​
Vitorious is a project I conceived to invite people worldwide to reflect and take action about some of the critical existential issues of our time.
My experience has unequivocally proved to me that trusting ambitious political and business "leaders", raising awareness, sharing information, and saturating the world with hopeful promises and eyebrow-raising visuals is not enough to bring about the changes we need. Therefore, my artwork gathers beneficent funding and encourages thoughtful direct action in the front lines of so many tragedies and oppressive systems that man(un)kind perpetrates.
I combine words and images to design murals, apparel, stickers, and digital assets to get people's attention to the issues like the climate catastrophe and mental health crisis. I strive to make everything accessible to people with varied levels of ability and education so that no handicap or privilege keeps anyone away from comprehending what I intend to bring to light.
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​The Vitorious logo is inspired by Hermetic, Buddhist, and Upanishadic traditions. It features letters I developed, complimentary and harmonic elements in the sun crown and crescent moon, the Noble Eightfold Path inside an eye to symbolize the concept of Right View, and a red marker at the 11th hour alluding to the pressing matters and voids of our time that require our attention.
If you are wondering why there is no letter "c" in "Vitorious", it is in part because of my name. However, read it out loud and listen carefully: you don't need a c. Depending on how that sounds to you, you might hear "you don't need to see" and that is my provocation to those who come across my work. We must somehow feel the truths art reveals. ​
Still don't get it? Read anew, listen anew, and feel anew. The truth is often found beneath and beyond our subtly tinted perspectives, biased judgements, and inherited vices.
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The Alphabe[e]t
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Everything you see here was made by bees. Sort of… I am no Thomas Libertiny. As my work is focused on adopting unorthodox perspectives to help us navigate reality and be decent during our brief trip on Earth, this typeface was developed to bring us the voices of the wild. After much deliberation and study of non-human language and culture, I adopted the viewpoint of worker honey bees (Apis mellifera) to create nature’s alphabet. Their brilliance got me buzzing.
Did you know that most species of bees are solitary and don’t live in hives? Or that sterile female bees that are part of a colony perform a variety of roles specific to their stage of development? As they age, a worker goes from housekeeper to nurse, to attendant to the queen, to architect, then ventilator, guard and, finally, forager. They do it all. With no disrespect to royalty, why be a needy queen when one can be a badass Jane of all trades?
Anyway… Hoping to do them justice, each letter and symbol is influenced by boundaries and alignments of hexagons. The phrases they compose are generally critiques of our relationship with the non-civilized world we strive to pulverize. In time, many a conscience will be pollinated (or stung) by these savagely minced elements and words. ​
*If you want to geek out on bees, check out ScienceDirect.com. They have millions of peer-reviewed published articles made freely available for everyone to read, download and reuse in line with the user license displayed on the article. This is not a paid endorsement. I simply found a good research paper on their site and recommend you read it too, if that's your thing.
Be[e] well and prosper [kindly].
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The costs
[of doing good]
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Before you buy or invest in anything [and i do mean anything] think about how the thing, or person, or opportunity you're considering really contributes to the type of impact you're trying to have.
There is always a cost to whichever good one intends to do and/or make and I work to make art that does more good than they take from Earth.
My shirts, for example, demand certain natural wonders to go from seed to change-making vehicles. To share my messages, my materials need to be resilient and flexible. Damaged fabrics or faulty prints mean messages won't be shared as intended. In which case, my shirt becomes like any other, mere skin cover.
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My shirts require the following indispensable contributions to materialize:
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* cotton plants, which take about nine months and 1.700 liters of water to grow to the point of harvest in the Northern part of my state of Minas Gerais
* Products, machinery, and tools used to cultivate each plant
* R$10 wage for a worker responsible for planting, caring, and picking cotton
* R$10 wage for a worker responsible for spinning cotton into yarn
* R$10 wage for a worker responsible for sewing yarn into a t-shirt
* R$20 wage for a worker responsible for t-shirt procurement, equipment maintenance, and printing artwork into fabric
* R$20 wages for workers responsible for transporting all resources along this chain
* R$15 wage for a worker responsible for production quality research, designing the artwork, and coordinating printing and shipping [me]
* R$15 Donation to a reparative initiative [varies according to t-shirt series]
*** For each pair of swapped sleeve models: R$30 wage for workers responsible for cutting, re-sewing, and shipping services
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Think and decide carefully and kindly
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The Giants ​
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I would not be able to do any of this if it were not for the mysterious wonder of existence, my ancestors, my parents, and all the beings (human or not) who influenced me to observe reality carefully and walk gently upon the Earth.​
A special thanks to my family, friends, and teachers who I've met along the way from Belo horizonte to Ashburnham, from Poughkeepsie to Ann Arbor, from California to wherever else we crossed paths. Know that I cherish you, even if from afar and in silence. You are the giants on whose shoulders I stand.
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For those who do or may come to know and support my work, thank you for seeing some value where I saw value and for helping me help myself and "others" who are not seen, heard, (re)cognized, respected, and/or understood.
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My debt of gratitude to all of you is as large as the to-do list to manifest more harmony for all in this miraculous blue home of ours.
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I'd like to highlight a few thoughts from people who have shaped me along the way, which may help other lost sailors navigate the untamable waters of life:
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“Forge an alliance with something larger than yourself. Do it with serenity and courage. The bonds you have with everyone and everything else are temporary.”​
Mom
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“Physics teaches us that every material has a breaking point. Life teaches us that people do too.”
Dad
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“I am Machado but I am not made of iron.”
Juca Machado
"Whenever I need to make a big decision, I ask myself: what is going to maximize adventure and freedom?"
Layla Machado Garry
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"Direction is more important than speed."
Ian Machado Garry
“Don’t be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.”
Arthur Miller via Rebecca Hardin
“Do you know the difference between the intelligent man and the wise man? The intelligent man knows how to get out of complicated situations. The wise man knows how to avoid them.”
Juarez, o Estradeiro
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“Keep doing good.”
Father Áureo Nogueira
~ Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can put off to the day after tomorrow just as well. ~
Ryan Calvi
~ Words are arrows. Once you let them go you can never take them back. ~
Marta Serreti
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“If you were a kid, would you look up to you?”
Chris Herren
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"Success needs succession."
Deion Sanders
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Wangari Maathai
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~ If a flower fails to grow beautifully, you don’t get angry or yell at the flower. You care for the flower. The same thing happens to a person. If s/he appears to be struggling, find a way to let the sunshine in, water the seeds of beauty in that person, replenish their soil or change their surroundings. Cultivation is what they need to thrive. ~
Thich Nhat Hanh
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“It is better either to be silent or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few.”
Pythagoras
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"the imagination, the feeling, the new, the unforeseen of one developed mind is closed to them, mindless blockheads eternally secluded from the light."
Camille Claudel
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"To lightly untie the link of what has passed, of what has happened, of what is happening, such is the simple task."
Pascal Quignard via Nastassja Martin
"An artist who is not an activist would, without a doubt, be akin to a lifeless entity.”
Ai Weiwei
“The whole world belongs to any person who will stop and look, before going on their way."
Banksy
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