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Artist Reveals What’s Wrong With Our Modern Society In These 30 New Satirical Illustrations
Interview With ArtistPolish artist Pawel Kuczynski is a well-known artist who likes to express his thoughts through his mind-provoking illustrations that depict our modern society. Each colorful artwork by the artist illustrates the perils of our current society and points out relatable feelings and experiences along with a good dose of irony and sarcasm.
Kuczynski’s works are themed to include topics such as societal pressure, mental health issues, and the negative effects of social media addiction. In his illustrations, one can often notice that his artworks tend to portray the loneliness that some might experience while immersed in the world of social media, from forever chasing “likes” to the constant upkeep of online personas. These last few themes have become even more prevalent given the current global pandemic.
More info: Facebook | pictorem.com | teepublic.com | pawelkuczynski.com | Instagram
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Can't get out of the hole if you have to use your means to get out just to survive.
Pawel’s works have been previously featured on Bored Panda and you can find them by clicking here, here, here, and here. Now that you have the goods, pandas, let us know which of the previous posts was your favorite and why! Each post contains more works from Pawel so without a doubt it's quite a collection of works that he has created over the years.
We also reached out to Pawel to find out a little bit more about him and his works. First, we asked the artist if he had any major influences in his life that might've helped him to develop and refine his style.
“I have always been interested in illustration and posters. In my youth, the Polish Poster School had the greatest influence on me. I recommend that you familiarize yourself with these works as they were of great influence for me. Also, there are master workshops that get combined with great ideas, which is always the most important point of reference for me.”
The artist has always been into art as most of his life pretty much revolved around it. Pawel Kuczynski had graduated from Fine Arts Academy in Poznan has been rewarded with more than 140 prizes and distinctions thanks to his incredibly thought-provoking illustrations that comment on social, economic, and political issues through satire.
Art, in any kind of form, takes a lot of time not only to practice but also to produce, therefore we asked Pawel how long it takes him to fully finish his illustrations.
“The most important and time-consuming thing for me is the idea. Sometimes it takes days. The finished work itself takes about 1-2 days, usually.”
The artist also sells various merchandise featuring his art. If you take a look at his social media you can see that he has prints and even t-shirts that could make for a cool gift to wear or hang on your wall! The 44-year-old artist has also hosted various exhibitions for his deep illustrations but he is not a big fan of them.
Being an artist is not easy, one can easily encounter a lack of inspiration, burnout, etc, so we wanted to ask Kuczynski about his ideas for the illustrations.
“The search for an idea is a long and arduous process. It is mainly based on observation and linking insights. An attempt to synthesize many factors."
As we mentioned before, sometimes creative work can cause quite a burnout, therefore we asked the artist how he dealt with that as well.
“Of course, especially if I'm working on ideas that deal with a narrow topic. I work as a press illustrator and sometimes I have the impression that I am illustrating the same topic again.
However, I try to do ‘hygienic’ mental work. At a leisurely pace, with some rest time, during which I am mainly engaged in sports. Exercise effectively clears and resets the mind.”
We also asked Pawel about how people reacted to his work.
“I touch on various topical and controversial topics. I try to do it with distance and a pinch of salt... but also with multi-layered meaning, so that everyone can read something for themselves. The reactions vary, sometimes very nice, sometimes aggressive. This proves that my works are not indifferent.”
MPO means Miejskie Przedsiębiorstwo Oczyszczania, which is Municipal Public Utilities, mostly trash collecting, unless it’s not evident from the picture.
The creative process is not easy, but there are many enjoyable parts to it.
“Each stage of the creative work is important. It is exciting and frustrating to look for an idea as well as to be finished with certain work.”
We also asked about the inspiration behind the artist's Instagram account.
“Social platforms give you the opportunity to reach your audience. I'm happy to share my works in these places. I observe the reactions to my works with curiosity. In the case of Instagram, I would like to point out that the Instagram account is not run by me. It's my fan's initiative.”
This is unfortunately the reality in my country now, the governmental propaganda glorifying those who lay waste to the Constitution, ridicule basic human decency, violate good practice in lawmaking, tear social bonds, undermine social trust, rewrite history. And thousands swallow it line, hook and sinker.
Artists tend to get motivated by a lot of things such as curiosity, the search for beauty, or even meaning. Therefore, we asked Pawel about that too.
“I'm a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań. Diploma in drawing.
I have been educated in many forms of artistic creations, from graphic arts through painting, photography, and even sculpture. This is what education in Poland looked like. Each young artist had to learn about a wide range of creative expressions.”
If the energy of a person runs too low to still be in persuit of certain passions in life, we might as well be going to the grave already.
Unfortunately with busy societies, easiest way is to plug a child in front of screens. Yet it's the most damaging thing for a child's brain, addictive and makes it even harder for parents to break from since the kid will stop responding to normal queues that should be thought. Vicious little cycle!
Sometimes we lose our drive in life and give it up, just so we can go and become successful in society.
Having a opinion that dosnt conform is dangerous, despicably if you write it down
multimedia can make it so certain people will grow up way to fast ? or can make it that certain adult people never really mature ? Not sure about many of those drawnings their meaning to be honest.
For anyone outside of Poland - this is a reference to the state TV, which has become a full on propaganda for the government, twisting the facts for their benefit.
The media might blame the civilians way to much for certain things beyond their control, in effect blinding them for what is really going on.
Because paper books are so much better than e-books. My kid carries one Chromebook that has all of her lesson plans instead of a load of dead trees with content often outdated before the ink dries.
I personally think paper books are much better than ebooks. Feeling the paper, the smell of a new book…it’s an experience to me.
Load More Replies...Paper books and e-books both have their merits. A real book has that tactile quality, doesn't need batteries, and can't be hacked. But the e-book is kept up-to-date, takes up WAY less physical space, and often contains links that bestows a deeper level of information. It's all contextual :)
I think it is a matter of preference really. Neither can really be stated to be objectively better than the other.
Load More Replies...Easier for me to carry 100+ books in English in a portable device than 10 awfully translated books. Saves trees and money.
actually paper companies plant new trees to compensate for the ones they cut down for paper. It'll be bad business practice is they never grow new ones since it'll eventually run out.
Load More Replies...Books are like being transferred to another world where there are things that aren't possible but... in the pages of that book, it seems as possible as you randomly wanting to eat a snack but you aren't really hungry (so, extremely possible.)
they are free in any library. i havent seen computers or tablets been handed out
Load More Replies...Ironically I'm doing exactly that with my phone as I'm looking at this meaningful art and challenging my brain, and reading everyone's interpretations
I really hate this idea that modern media is killing creativity. As an artist, Writer, and cosplayer, modern media, modern social media and modern equipment makes it so much EASIER to be creative. Instead of paying tons on canvas and paint I can only use once, I pay for a reusable tablet I hook up to the same computer I write with, and talk to world wide artist friends with, and post my art to the world with. A small artist like me has a much wider audience because the internet allows it and that's absolutely awesome, but then I relax and look at some artsy comics and all it wants to do is s**t on computers like analog was the only way to do things and killing forests is so much better than my hundreds of books on a ten year old device kindle.
People are always like that. Mostly lazy (or bad) parents and idiots.
Load More Replies...Yeah many of them are fake deep so I don't think it would benefit you to have them explained to you if you didn't immediately derive your own meaning from them
Load More Replies...i liked them tbh. it doesn't matter if you get the meaning, the drawings are beautiful and surreal
Oh, the style is great. And it’s possible that the artist doesn’t actually believe that these are all major issues in modern society, but rather that they just drew images they thought would be neat. Could be real issues, their own beliefs, or their image of perceived issues.
Load More Replies...The deepest thing I see here is that every man/boy is portrayed in a negative light, while every woman/girl is portrayed in a positive light.
I really hate this idea that modern media is killing creativity. As an artist, Writer, and cosplayer, modern media, modern social media and modern equipment makes it so much EASIER to be creative. Instead of paying tons on canvas and paint I can only use once, I pay for a reusable tablet I hook up to the same computer I write with, and talk to world wide artist friends with, and post my art to the world with. A small artist like me has a much wider audience because the internet allows it and that's absolutely awesome, but then I relax and look at some artsy comics and all it wants to do is s**t on computers like analog was the only way to do things and killing forests is so much better than my hundreds of books on a ten year old device kindle.
People are always like that. Mostly lazy (or bad) parents and idiots.
Load More Replies...Yeah many of them are fake deep so I don't think it would benefit you to have them explained to you if you didn't immediately derive your own meaning from them
Load More Replies...i liked them tbh. it doesn't matter if you get the meaning, the drawings are beautiful and surreal
Oh, the style is great. And it’s possible that the artist doesn’t actually believe that these are all major issues in modern society, but rather that they just drew images they thought would be neat. Could be real issues, their own beliefs, or their image of perceived issues.
Load More Replies...The deepest thing I see here is that every man/boy is portrayed in a negative light, while every woman/girl is portrayed in a positive light.