Smithe

Born in 1987 in Mexico City, Smithe — whose first name is Luis Enrique — grew up surrounded by the street art of his neighbourhood and picked up graffiti at the age of twelve. Self-taught, he spent fifteen years as a company-employed graffiti writer and worked as a designer at Saatchi & Saatchi before going freelance. This unconventional path, which he describes as his "university," shaped a practice spanning illustration, mural painting, sculpture, and graphic design.

His visual world draws on vintage Mexican comics, 1950s graphic aesthetics, Japanese anime, and science fiction cinema. His murals feature fragmented figures, colourful beasts, and ambiguous robot-organic beings, exploring themes of existentialism and individuality in the face of the machine. The artist constantly reinvents his style, deconstructing bodies to reveal their inner workings.

Based in Mexico City, where he runs the TOBA gallery and the clothing brand Tony Delfino, he is also a musician with the band Stendal. In 2015, Pharrell Williams selected him for the Adidas "Original Superstars" campaign. His murals and exhibitions have taken him to New York, Miami, Berlin, London, Paris, Buenos Aires, and Japan. His first gallery exhibition was held in 2011 at Vertigo in Mexico City.