And now to wrap up our year-end memories of Arizonans who passed away in 2025.
Angel Díaz was an all-around artist, from graffiti to tattoos to public murals and even jiu-jitsu. Moving through downtown Phoenix, you’ve probably seen one of Díaz’s many public murals around town. He’s the artist behind “Super Barrio Bros” that lived on the corner of 16th and Van Buren streets until earlier this year.
He also worked with fellow artists Pablo Luna and Lalo Cota on the “Bienvenidos a Phoenix” postcard-style mural as part of the Calle 16 project in 2011.
But Cota had known Díaz for many years prior.
LALO COTA: I met him in the '90s, and he was a break dancer in those days. So he was really slim, and he did graffiti and I remember he was wearing a hat and it had his name on it, which was Mes. That's what his graffiti name was. It was a camouflage hat and he wrote on it "Mes" in black and white, bold letters. …
We used to poke fun at him, because he was a little bit messy. He was like the Tasmanian Devil, whenever he came and we were hanging out, he would just come in like a little tornado and just, you know, move everything around. We used to call him "messy Mes."
When he would work on something, he would really get into it. He did tattoos, he painted with airbrush, he painted with spray paint. He tried oil painting. He painted with acrylics, watercolor, I mean, you name it, he would try it. He was dabbling in sculpture.
When he picked up something new, he worked on it until he mastered it. And I just always admired that about him.
With his artwork, he included his Mexican culture and Aztec culture, so he put that in with American culture. He mixed all that in together.
I actually recently found one of his paintings, and it was unfinished and it was of a chola woman from the barrio, and I was like, “Oh, that's Angel’s." And I brought it home with me. His work was not signed or anything. It just, his style was his signature.
He just had a really good sense of humor — you could feel that in his artwork — so he was always cracking jokes. It was always a good time. He had a magnetic laugh. I can hear him.
Another friend of ours, Pablo Luna, who passed away a couple years ago, when they would get together, it was like a comedy show. I could hear both of them laughing as we share these stories.
When you talk about someone, I know a lot of people say the generic stuff: he was great, he loved life, all that stuff. But he was really a genuine person. If he said you were his friend, I mean you were his friend, and you could count on him, even if you hadn't talked to him in a while, he was a person that would show up.
He was, he was definitely. … He was definitely a real friend. If he said he was your friend, he was your friend.
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