111Kviews
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
This post may include affiliate links.
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.”
Bored Panda. Censoring suicide is certainly part of the problem. For f**k's sake.
Agreed. Treating as a must-not-say stigmatises it further.
Load More Replies...
Stop censoring life! Suicide is a very real thing ! You can’t censor everything that makes people uncomfortable. Stop censoring our lives! If people sue Bored Panda because of a word that makes them uncomfortable then they need to get over it and accept that s****y things happen in real life.
I completely misread that at first and thought it said they needed it the most...which is ironic as a sufferer of such ideation.
That's how I read it too and it made sense to me.... my brother killed himself and the hardest part is being torn between missing him and being grateful he isn't suffering any more
Load More Replies...
There's one sitting alone. Meanwhile, there's a huge beacon of LIGHT calling all those in need. And there's literally nobody there.
I feel almost like they are needed to shine the light....they have a role and place, and they are needed by others.
Load More Replies...
Well, yeah, helping people in need all the time ... realizing that's all you're ever going to do ... and you've trained most of them into learned helplessness ... and it never does any good, they always revert ...
So there's not a tiniest thing that's positive about it? Like nothing they do after being helped benefits anyone? Man that's dark.
Load More Replies...
The censoring is a complete waste. If you can't figure out what the word is, then the post doesn't even make sense. If you can, then there's no point in censoring it.
Load More Replies...
So much censoring of common words crack me up because of them being so called either politically incorrect of offensive. We can let filthy, filthy words be sung and glorified on videos, tv, now even in books, etc but a word such as this has to be whited out so to speak. Laughable!!! You can use any vaulger disgusting words or phrases but say certain everyday words we have used for years and now they are taboo. This world is nothing but goofy! My opinion...
this is so true. andy why many wait until there is nothing left to keep them here. everybody around them watch them fade away bcs well they freakin need something... the person is dieing in frontbof them and they dont see
Very untrue. As spmeone who gets suicidal, literally only two people actually benefit from my life and those are my best friend and my boyfriend
I actually do feel the same about myself but then again I don't think we can really see everything. Maybe there are small things that we do and it's not small to someone else who we might be completely unaware of.
Load More Replies...
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??
