October Artist Feature - Diego Florez

October 28, 2022

Purchase prints here. A portion of each sale goes to the featured musician. Illustration references photography by Anthony Maes.

"Planting seeds in our youth is how we ensure art will remain and be fruitful. Watering their imagination can be the encouragement a youth needs to improve their environment and mindset about life." - Diego Florez

I've admired Diego's work for quite a while now, both as a musician and a visual artist. But Diego is more than an artist. It's very clear that he is a builder of communities, a creator of connections, and a deep thinker. His work tells you a story and challenges you to understand it.

I hope experiencing his work and reading his interview below inspires you to look ahead into the void and pull the color from it. His answers have certainly reignited a creative fire within me.

We're very lucky to have him as a member of this cultural scene here and I can't wait to see what he does next. Take some time to learn more about Diego in our interview below.

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? What's your name and where did you grow up?

I was born and raised in North Denver in 1996. Frequently headed back and forth during summer breaks to Juarez, Chihuahua, MX to see my moms family. When I was 15, my mother was deported so I was forced to start working construction getting paid under the table, learning and refining skills that have projected me to the place I am today.

Today I am a poet, artist, musician, teacher, and builder, a full time creative living and thriving in Denver.

What inspires your work, both as a visual artist and a musician?

The more work I make, the more I realize the value of guttural decisions and perspectives during the creation process. A mix of feeling in the moment along with motifs and symbols across all time to create a story that evokes an individual connection with each viewer. Often, if we follow our gut, decisions will be made in our best interest free of overthinking.

Overthinking is procrastination. When we fluidly move throughout our experience as viewers of the 3D and 4D, I feel there are signs across the way, pieces of the puzzle if you will, and it is our job as creatives to put those together. Something along the way can trigger feelings and ideas that spark the seed. The deeper the resonance of the idea or seed, the more people will support or uphold. You have to act on that seed in that moment. The longer you let that boil, the essence of the fire you seen will dim or your perspective of it will dim. As creators, our job is to create, so sow that seed! Along the way you may have five ideas that pop up from that one you had just started working on. After a while you are in this rabbit hole matrix of things you have created and your direction starts to develop. Through many failures and triumps. Break throughs are usually when you take the boundaries off your imagination. We get into mental spaces as artists where our work becomes our identity and creating work outside of that identity can be difficult for us or others.

I am in a place right now where I am vibrantly inspired by the world around me and thankful to exist within it.

I saw you recently completed a community mural which allowed for others to participate in your painting. Can you talk a little bit about the significance of community driven art and why it's important?

Public art changed my life as well as the course of history. Art is a physical manifestation of ideas. When (art is) displayed in public the access and opportunity for interaction (with art) is limitless. Planting seeds in our youth is how we ensure art will remain and be fruitful. Watering their imagination can be the encouragement a youth needs to improve their environment and mindset about life.

What would you like to plug? (New music, upcoming shows, etc.)

In February of 2023, there will be a solo exhibition of my works featured at Alto Gallery located in the RINO arts park.

The work is an expression of stories surrounding chicano/mexicano/mestizo history and culture.

I'm super excited to have the opportunity to present this round of work. It is a compilation of ideas and diverse processes used to create a universe and tell a story about it.