Kcho (Alexis Leyva Machado) was born in 1969 on Cuba's Isla de la Juventud, and lives and works in Havana.
Kcho quickly joined the international circuit of institutions and galleries, winning prizes at the Havana Biennial in 1991 and the Kwangju Biennial in South Korea in 1995. In 2000, he represented Cuba at the Venice Biennial.
Being twice an islander is not insignificant: the theme of isolation and the imperative need to communicate with the rest of the world permeates all his work, while remaining attached to Cuban traditions and culture, with the boat and everyday objects being the main elements of his work.
Inherited from oars, combining boat hulls and canoes, tables and a number of heterogeneous objects, the works produced during his stay in Saché are animated, suspended in the air... The homage to Calder's mobiles is obvious, as Kcho himself admits: "Calder's mobiles were the first works I studied at the Havana School of Fine Arts".
During his stay in Saché, Kcho created a column of boats, which was later presented on the Champs-Elysées in Paris as part of the "Champs de la sculpture" in September 2000.