Have you ever seen your dreams, your most outlandish thoughts, your fears, your happiness, your fantasies, your humor and ironies materialize in pictorial situations as human and bestiary forms rendered in vibrant colors? Lisbon-born artist Diogo Potes embodies precisely these concerns through his colorful brushstrokes in oil and acrylic on canvas.

At first glance, Potes’s works tend to convey a certain trace of innocence—perhaps linked to childhood. This is evident not only in the figures that appear, clearly defined yet lacking overly precise detail, but also in the predominance of a largely primary, contrasting, and incandescent color palette. Soon, however, we realize that this innocence is tinged with a clear sense of maturity, shaped by irony, humor, and an adult universe within a dreamlike atmosphere that, as the artist’s own biography suggests, approaches a level of transgression rooted in punk, underground rock, and vintage comics that have influenced him—seeking above all to break with imposed notions of normality, of what is “proper” or “aesthetically correct.”