Diogo Potes (b. 1977, Lisbon) is an artist working where illustration, the graphic image and painting intersect and overlap. His language — shaped by underground punk rock, the comics of the 70s, 80s and 90s, and a subcultural visual cosmos of vintage craftsmanship and pre-digital, slow processes carried since childhood — now imprints itself viscerally onto canvas. In an ecosystem of surrealised dreams, with symbols layered as provocation and escapism, textures let humour and irony make the first incision into the memory of self, so that a tender/wounded dichotomy remains delicately open and visible, within a body of work that explores a newly articulated plasticity and a deliberate conceptual deepening.
After two decades as a multidisciplinary creative director and award-winning designer — across brand identity, experimental typography and spatial/architectural work — shaping Lux Frágil’s visual pulse and collaborating widely on cultural projects, Potes advances and refines an authorial grammar long in the making, where an emotional bestiary and dreamwork converge into forceful, colourful disclosures of the self. A coming-of-age and a natural evolution of form, path and artistic expression that have always been present, now revealed with sharper and more personal clarity.
Solo exhibitions
FACA CATANA CANIVETE — first public presentation of painting. Nov. 2025, Lux Frágil, Lisbon.
Group exhibitions, projects & curating (selection)
- THREESOMETHING — curation and visual direction at Lux Frágil, Oct. 2022 – Dec. 2023. Five invited artists (one per quarter) worked back-to-back in direct dialogue with Potes to create monthly originals that defined the club’s identity. 15 works in total; each issued as an A2 edition of 500, signed and numbered, and distributed at Lux. Artists: Bráulio Amado, Kruella d’Enfer, AkaCorleone, Filipe Andrade, and Carol From Lisbon.
- Tangled Narratives (Group Exhibition) — curated by Joana Astolfi and Inês da Câmara; showcasing Corneta-Maneta-Perneta, 120 × 150 cm, acrylic and oil sticks on canvas, 2025.
- Samsung Stage, MEO Kalorama Festival — large-scale commissioned piece by Underdogs Gallery, Lisbon, 2023.Editions & publications
Editions & publications
- Reversed Warthog — commissioned oil on canvas; accompanying screen print, signed and numbered by the artist, 35 × 35 cm, edition of 30 + 5 AP, Conqueror 300 gsm, Underdogs Gallery, 2025.
- Calhau-calhau-catatau — four-colour screen print on paper, signed and numbered by the artist; Arcoprint 300 gsm, 62 × 45 cm, Underdogs Gallery, 2019.
- Raio Quase Laser — risograph, 41 × 29.7 cm, edition of 30, Underdogs Gallery, 2015.
- Munken Notes (Lynx) — Phantasm Fantasma Fun-Asma, illustration cover commission for the Munken Papeterie Collection, 2023.
- Fora Sunglasses — textile illustration commission, 2024.
- Je suis pas un illustrator — independent solo exhibition and artist-published print edition, 2013.
Ongoing collaborations
- Lux Frágil (Lisbon) — long-term authorship of identities, poster series, bespoke type, and visual curation.
- Festival Iminente / Bairros Project — design leadership and typographic research (Cultural Affairs).
Press (selection)
It’s Nice That (2023; 2014); iDN World; The Portugal News; Designboom; among others.