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24 Illustrations Depicting The Absurdity Of The Present-Day World By Santiago Bara (New Pics)
Interview With Artist
Santiago Bara is an artist from Spain who creates humorous and aesthetically pleasing illustrations as a commentary on modern life. He started making these "little cartoons" as practice for more serious jobs, but they unexpectedly evolved into something bigger than that, and now the artist has more than 7k followers on Instagram.
Santiago's creations attract attention with their simplicity and accurate depiction of the present-day world. He makes people laugh by highlighting the absurd elements of today's society. Santiago's inspiration comes from the real world and his interactions with people. The artist believes that the clash between one's expectations of the world and what one then finds in everyday situations can be a good starting point for a comic.
If you want to see more Bored Panda posts about Santiago and his work click here or here.
More info: Instagram | sbara.bigcartel.com
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Bored Panda has reached out to Santiago again, wanting to find out more about his recent work. First, we asked how he decides which ideas to pursue and turn into full-fledged comics. He told us: “Well, for the ideas for the comics, I don't set out to find a theme, but they come up in everyday life and the things I see or read. Although looking at what I do in retrospect, in reality, it's clear that I'm almost always circling around no more than two or three themes (love, memory, alienation...).”
We wanted to know his view about the role humor plays in art, and in society. Santiago said: “Humor works as a lightener, a sugar coating that makes it bearable to talk about certain things. Although there are certain people for whom humor on some subjects is not tolerable. Especially jokes related to identity issues, both political and tribal.”
From what I am interpreting from this: kids start out as thinking outside the box and using creative thinking skills and through the years with the public school system, they are compressed mentally into what the school wants them to be. Their creative skills are discouraged and it is basically like a really slow process of brainwashing. That’s the public school system for you… and it’s only getting worse. I think the video for Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” describes this perfectly.
Asked about particularly challenging or rewarding experiences he has had as a comic creator, Santiago mentioned: “The most satisfying experience making the comics I do is the sharing of my work. That it reaches readers anywhere in the world, and they empathize with it and feel represented.”
Playing expressively is much more pleasing to your audience. They won't notice the slight departures from strict tempo, but they'll remember how the song made them feel.
Next, we wanted to know what in his opinion sets his artwork apart from that of other comic creators. Santiago explained: “I don't think there are any major aspects that differentiate me from other creators. Maybe some of my vignettes tend to be a bit ambiguous, or even abstract and do not leave a 100% clear resolution. But, although those are my favorites, I think that in general, they are the ones that people like the least.”
Lastly, we were curious if there are any artists or creators who have influenced Santiago’s work. He told us: “I'm influenced by everything I come across. For example, I've recently been reading about Frida Kahlo, and beyond the icon that everyone knows, there is a very inspiring life and work. I found it very motivating. Or another recent example, which has nothing to do with the art world, are the interviews I've seen with biologist Michael Levin. I think I understand about 10% of what he says, but what ideas? Very crazy.”
Sometimes it upsets me to visit museums with mummies, it's weird that it is somehow ok to dig a person up and display them. Cremation for me.
Couldn't upvote this enough, I too think it's a form of disrespect to just display the remains of a person. Logically I know the body is just a casing without the mind and/or soul, depending on one's beliefs, but I still find it disturbing. We're in the 22nd century for crying out loud, why can't we just make 3D video projections for museal display and then rebury the remains?
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"Today's fallen soldiers will become tomorrow's excavation site"- the first hole has the shadow of a WWII soldier, the second hole has the shadow of a later generation military era person, and the next hole is expected to be an even later generation. History is written on graves.
Now I see the shapes of the combat helmet and the beret in the shadows
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They were just like us. And one day we will be just like them, so the cycle continues.
Because clearly the figure looks like woman but the shadow, the reflection of that person, is a man. "She" sees in "her shadow who he truly is despite appearances - a man. Also this picture doubles as a suicide warning - many adults who cannot be free to express who they truly are or who they truly love can become severely depressed from such deep supression of their most core self and too bad depressions can lead to suicide. It is very common not just with transpersons and gay people but also same mechanism is seen in any situation where people are extremely restricted from showing who they are - for example the princess Diana clearly suffered from restrictions imposed on her to the point of destructive depression, same thing happens to trans people. Imagine you could never in any situation when you are together with someone else tell others ANY your true toughts and reactions. See how that can be extremely damaging to one's own health?
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It looks like the shadow is wearing a navy uniform, and she is remembering her past and trying to move on, but she will never be able to change her past or her shadow and the influence she has or had
Not sure I understand this. The shadow doesn't show the hammer or what looks like a sweater knotted around his waist ( or a skirt?)
The actual person appears to be a woman, but the shadow is a man.
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The figure looks like woman but the shadow, the reflection of that person, is a man. "She" sees in "her shadow who he truly is despite appearances - a man. Also this picture doubles as a suicide warning - many adults who cannot be free to express who they truly are or who they truly love can become severely depressed from such deep supression of their most core self and too bad depressions can lead to suicide. It is very common not just with transpersons and gay people but also same mechanism is seen in any situation where people are extremely restricted from showing who they are - for example the princess Diana clearly suffered from restrictions imposed on her to the point of destructive depression, same thing happens to trans people. Imagine you could never in any situation when you are together with someone else tell others ANY your true toughts and reactions. See how that can be extremely damaging to one's own health?
I saw the grave of Karl Marx and I thought to myself, this is just another communist plot 😂
The person that they used to be (a marine, or in the army) is in the grave?
Bored Panda. Censoring suicide is certainly part of the problem. For f**k's sake.
God, I remember the way the pro-marijuana protestors would absolutely trash the parks. I haven't seen trash like that since before trash clean-ups of greenspaces started to become a thing in the late '70s.* I know there have been some unfair and misdated images of environmental protests; I do not mean those. But Hell, pot-heads I you gotta do better. (Maybe they do by now, this was a long time ago.) (*When I was a kid, urban greenspaces would often collect trash for years. You really can't imagine how disgusting it was. America went through its own phase of looking like those pictures you see of India's trash... not so long ago.)
The stem is where we start out and it branches out in many directions. Notice the different veins have different lengths, and the points of the leaf, as well. We take many paths in our lives and each one determines how far we'll make it out to old age.
The jury let's their organs decide? One follow the heart, one follows the brain, guts, etc? These are all so good because there's no one meaning to it.
I think this roughly translates to "I need you to need to be important to me," but I'm honestly slightly confused
An artist who consistently fails to convey the intended message is a failure. I refuse to accept that I'm an idiot for being unable to figure these out. One or two? My fault. All of them? The artist's to blame.
I'm afraid I didn't get most of them. On the other hand, the comments were most interesting, as usual
I think that perhaps because he is from Spain, there is something literally missing in translation. Different memes there, different cultural shorthand, different significance to well known images, so on.
I wonder if i threw up in a brown paper bag and placed it in front of a white canvas ... how would it be interpreted?
I'm sorry I tried to take these seriously, but I felt like I was scrolling through r/im14andthisisdeep
The cool thing about art is that your interpretation is the most valid, at least to you.
Pretty much all of these are based on things that are common or very discussed in our current global culture, or they reflect typical human nature, not sure how so many people are so confused. I get that not anyone knows what "canon" means and the lady archeologist/man archeologist but the reast seems obvious to anyone who reads newspapers??
An artist who consistently fails to convey the intended message is a failure. I refuse to accept that I'm an idiot for being unable to figure these out. One or two? My fault. All of them? The artist's to blame.
I'm afraid I didn't get most of them. On the other hand, the comments were most interesting, as usual
I think that perhaps because he is from Spain, there is something literally missing in translation. Different memes there, different cultural shorthand, different significance to well known images, so on.
I wonder if i threw up in a brown paper bag and placed it in front of a white canvas ... how would it be interpreted?
I'm sorry I tried to take these seriously, but I felt like I was scrolling through r/im14andthisisdeep
The cool thing about art is that your interpretation is the most valid, at least to you.
Pretty much all of these are based on things that are common or very discussed in our current global culture, or they reflect typical human nature, not sure how so many people are so confused. I get that not anyone knows what "canon" means and the lady archeologist/man archeologist but the reast seems obvious to anyone who reads newspapers??
