![]() Something else that shapes her creative outlook is the character of her home country. I don't want people from the future looking at the illustration, thinking that the only thing on the planet were humans – and that we were very egocentric!" I love my family and friends, but I believe our society is too centred on humans. "Art has been looking to people for a long time," she says. Her work typically features animals in interesting scenarios. But what do you do when you are from South America, and everything is chaos of colour and a beautiful mess? It took me a couple of years to run from what I learned: to keep what I needed but try to make something that represents our culture." Animal planet "They were talking about the Bauhaus, minimalism, or Kandinsky, and I appreciate them all. "I was a good student, but I felt my school was trying to remove my identity," she explains. But she quickly became disillusioned by the limitations of the discipline. Perhaps surprisingly, María originally trained as a graphic designer. But I also think revisiting memories and giving new meanings to things makes us overcome trauma and heal. ![]() "I know it's not very healthy, and people say you should live in the present, be mindful, and so on. "That's because I live in the past a lot," she says. "But it still makes you feel nostalgic because the feeling of loss – of a love one, of childhood, of magic – is still living in our memories."Īnd there's a theme of nostalgia running throughout all her work. "Sometimes I draw, for example, the spirit of a pet and use of plenty of saturated colours," she says. That said, both happy and sad themes are reflected in her work. "Life is super-hard sometimes, and I think illustration can portray a difficult subject without removing the bright side," she explains. Her work is distinctive, retro, surreal and, perhaps most importantly, fun. Influenced by both 70s psychedelia and the colourful 90s posters of her youth, María loves working with analogue techniques like risograph printing. In fact, it's hard for me to illustrate a specific thing without thinking of the form of the clouds or some creature moving in the background." Plus, I'm from the countryside, where many stories centred around something surreal or the idea of animals behaving like humans. "Since I'm from Latin America, I grew up with magical realism, reading Garcia Marquez, Borges and Cortazar at school. "My work is inspired by everyday life and how we can make it a little bit magical," she explains. And it's been a big influence on the work of Chilean artist María Jesús Contreras, who has worked with clients such as Wetransfer, Universal Music, Elektra Records, Love Watts, We Present, and Domestika. ![]() While magical realism has become a global phenomenon, it originated in Latin American literature. Instead, magical realism is typically set in the real world, with magical elements appearing alongside the everyday and mundane. It differs from traditional fantasy or science fiction, where the setting is often a completely imaginary world. Magical realism is a literary genre that combines realistic narratives with magical or fantastical elements. ![]()
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