The Catastrophes: Exploring Chaos in Mateo Pizarro’s Drawings

Colombian artist Mateo Pizarro’s series The Catastrophes dives straight into the storm of our collective anxieties, but not in the ways you might expect. These drawings capture surreal and often bizarre catastrophic events, but their scope is broader than natural disasters. Instead, Mateo explores the abstract disasters shaping today’s world. He confronts topics like radical political polarization, the culture of surveillance and the disorienting rise of “fake news.”

For Mateo, the act of drawing these catastrophes wasn’t just observational, it was also personal. These creations served as a way to process and make sense of the instability brewing under the surface since 2016 (and arguably earlier). In his work, he uses humor and absurdity to take the edge off these doom-filled prophecies. From exaggerating the effects of technological dependence or poking fun at the sheer absurdity of political echo chambers, the series invites us to laugh a little at our collective chaos. It’s less about predicting the end of the world and more about holding a mirror to it.

To discover more of Mateo Pizarro’s incredible drawings, check out his full portfolio on Behance.

More illustrations via Behance