Illustration: Mariana Miserável's miniatures revel happily in their misery

Date
26 June 2013

Mariana “Miserável” Santos – whose nickname means “the miserable one” – is a Portuguese illustrator and graphic designer with a taste for tiny people projecting laser beams from their eyes and cavorting around having a jolly old time, whether that be on a beach, a football pitch or beside a swimming pool.

She self-deprecatingly describes her style as “not knowing how to draw,” but her miniature figures glow naïvely with a universality that transcends linguistic and stylistic barriers. In fact, the weirder her work is the better; one yellow jumper-ed character holds up a piece of paper showing a picture of herself in that same exact pose, recreating the meta experiments of post-modernist painters. There’s something really charming about her little people – miserable or not.

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Mariana Santos: Tornado Art Show

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Mariana Santos: Untitled

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Mariana Santos: Lowbra show

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Mariana Santos: Duel

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Mariana Santos: Pickles Collective Show

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Mariana Santos: W&T

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Mariana Santos: Pickles Collective Show

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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