Diego Medina has been a long time collaborator with Stickerbomb and even though we don't get the opportunity to see him much, he's a good friend. His organic and abstract illustrations have fascinated us since we first laid eyes on them and his great personality comes across in his colourful drawings. He is one of the very few artists who have contributed artwork to every one of the first four Stickerbomb books and it's great to catch up with him now in 2022. 

So how’s all the art and music?

Kinda slow. With the music, I’ve made some lyrics and recorded vocals for other artists and bands and their projects, but they need to finish the stuff. I would finish the tracks a lot faster, but they are their projects, not mine. So I hope one day those recordings will see the light of day - there’s a lot of good stuff in there.

Sometimes i do this thing called Quem Sabe Sabe (QSS) just for fun.

A “me, myself and I” project where I create some beat loops and record vocals improvising lyrics and sounds with my Boss RC 505. QSS started as a way of me having fun about people that take music so seriously - then I decided to go on improvising with a looper and not giving a shit. 

With my art - last year I’ve decided to try and make resin toys, just a little experiment to see how the material works and what the whole process is. I didn’t get that far with it, but I want to get back to it with some better ideas someday. And then I've been drawing and posting on my IG account (@diegomedina74) just for the sake of it. And made some new stickers after a loooong time.

What do you find yourself working on today in 2022?

I've been working for the Yerbah skate brand for more than 15 years now. Making art for skate decks, online stuff, videos, promos, shirts, catalogues and so on. I love working for them. It is a dream job for me and the last decks were really amazing - I bet there will be more new stuff for 2022. I’m still making art for music records from around the world and from Brazil as well and at the end of last year I finally created something that I wanted to make for so long: caps. I made 3 designs, ordered patches and bought the caps, the process is homemade and now I’m selling them on my IG account.

2022 is just beginning and things in Brazil always start to happen by March. So let’s see how the year´s gonna be like.

Tell us a bit about how Porto Alegre is these days?

I can’t tell you much. I’m still living and working at home. I’ve got 3 doses of the  vaccine but I just don’t feel safe going out. A lot of Brazilian people just don’t give a fuck about Covid and vaccines so they keep living their lives like the 650,000 deaths here are absolutely nothing. So I just keep doing my stuff at home. Sometimes i have few friends here for some beers. I visit my parents once a week, go to the supermarket once a week, and so on. My home is my fortress.

Is the pandemic still affecting you all and how do you think things are gonna work out?

Our president is a complete psycho motherfucker.

He’s 200% insane and an irresponsible killer. He’s been destroying every single aspect in Brazil. The education system, health system, culture, eco system, security and a lot of very basic things for extremely poor people - every fucking aspect. It is really sad to see a lot of people supporting his utter psycho nonsense.

But I bet things will change for good in our next presidential elections later in 2022.

Has you work changed much over the years? What do you enjoy working on now?

I don’t think it changed that much. I have the same influences as I’ve had before. And I am still working with things that bring me happiness, like music and graphic arts.

I would really like to go further with the toys, maybe even learning some 3D software for creating with a 3D printer or even sculpting by hand. Then making a mold with silicone, putting the resin with paint, or painting afterwards, the package, etc.

How are you keeping sane?

As long as I can live and work at home whilst regularly talking to my family and my close friends, creating my personal things with all the freedom I need, I can keep myself sane in the middle of this whole fucking chaos.

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Explore more of Diego's work at his website www.diegomedina.com and check his social here.

If you like his work and interested in working with him you can either give him a message via his site or you can get in touch with us and we can organise it. 

Check what we do here.