We had the good fortune of connecting with Mané Dias and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mané, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
Tattooing makes the body active, conscious. It’s a return to oneself through controlled pain, through the decision to feel that pain on your own terms. In that process, the body ceases to be an object and becomes a sovereign subject in its own right.
This way, I feel that the images that remain on the skin after such an intentional session take on a ritual quality: they are memories of vulnerability and fear that a person has managed to face and overcome — for the sake of building an inner mythology. It’s an important thing to connect with that inner mythology, especially nowadays.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Coming from a family of migrants and becoming one as an adult myself influenced me a lot. There’s a mix of backgrounds, cultural viewpoints and the broadness of mind with which I got used to treat the world and people around me. I learnt early on that life is not linear and neither is the art.
I started tattooing when I was 18 and I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. It came naturally. Looking back, it’s hard to define the exact pipeline. It’s my lifestyle as much as it is my profession, you know?
To me, creating something is not about aiming for result but rather about searching and letting others witness my search. Most of designs and tattoos I create are autobiographical, metaphorically so, and what is really amazing is how many people from all around the world find them relatable. The symbolic imagery I use to express something belongs to them as much as it belongs to me.
I like to feel the shared wavelength we step onto during the sessions — and the thread that remains afterwards.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I am not one to go to restaurants and bars a lot, but a week long visit sounds like something worth a road trip through the coast of California with occasional stops at farms, beaches, vineyards and no-name diners. We’d definitely visit museums, too. And catch some old film retrospective at Roxy theatre.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My family, for always being there for me, and the whole team of Sashatattooing.

Website: https://www.themanedias.com/

Instagram: themanedias

Image Credits
main picture: Nat Austrich

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutLA is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.