The chess pieces appear to move across the board, yet their destiny is never entirely their own.

As in Borges’s poem, behind every visible move lies the possibility of another will: the player who moves the pieces, and beyond the player, perhaps another force still.

Machado transforms this idea into a meditation on freedom and destiny. The board becomes a metaphor for human existence, where choice and circumstance, will and uncertainty, continually confront one another.

The question therefore remains unresolved: are we the players, the pieces—or both?

The Chess begins with Jorge Luis Borges’s poem Chess, where the ancient game becomes a meditation on conflict, destiny, and the mysterious forces that determine every move.

Machado does not translate the poem literally into painting. Instead, he takes its central question—the relationship between the piece, the player, and the unseen force beyond them—and transforms it through his own visual language.

The chessboard expands beyond the game itself. Opposing figures, animals, landscape, light, and darkness inhabit the same symbolic territory, turning Borges’s meditation on destiny into a reflection on human existence.

The result is not an illustration of Borges, but a dialogue with him: a poem reimagined through painting.

Reflecting on the dialogue between Borges, destiny, and his own visual language, Machado explains:

“My interpretation comes from my own experience and my roots. That is the richness of art: each person experiences it through their own identity.”

— Esteban Machado Díaz