horror vacui
Paolo Torres Ray Santiago
artist’s statement
Horror Vacui, Latin for the “fear of empty spaces,” is a collaborative exhibit featuring paintings by Paolo Torres and poems by Ray Santiago.
Paolo Torres’ mixed media artworks showcase brooding torsos; decapitated; riddled with stains and scribbles to emulate emotions like emptiness and uncertainty. These cartoonish figures bare incompleteness, alluding to the strength in vulnerability, as packaged in the artist’s rough and intricate style.
Ray Santiago’s poetry project confronts the manifestations of this anxiety and attempts to escape the void through indulgence in anarchy. The poems depict a voice that is in recollection – a carousel of memories that, at its core, bear a scathing poignance of loneliness. The frenetic phrasing, pulse, and beat search for a bloated definition of loss.
More than allowing Horror Vacui to consume us, the pieces aim to soothe and fill the emptiness of the vulnerable.
June 2, 2024
Paolo Torres Ray Santiago
horror
vacui
running away is easy, it’s the leaving that’s hard
many leave in high heart, running away external excursions abroad, four seasons, blooming spring i get to return home, in high heart (with packages a-plenty duty free)
many leave in high heart, running away scratch and bite, after a home fight (adolescent-free and stubborn-old) i get to return home, in high heart (caked tears but cared and free)
many leave in high heart, running away moving away, a migratory bird, independent i get to return home, in high heart (to rest, to recuperate, to mend a wing)
(in heavy heart) now i carry myself alone i carry myself alone (now in heavy heart) leaving with heavy heart (heavy baggage) sagging and dragging around (no running) dragging and sagging around (a heart, a tumor) no home, no return (i am leaving, a heart)
But you’re all the same You’re all the same Shed your skin
Find a better body to fit in -Shed, Title Fight
I carve myself like meat, to mark with sutures, to remind and make me
stitch my palm fill with thread, my fate
mark my skin to fill me, with me from head to toe stain it, to make a better fit
to the center of eden
I. Heaven has a scientific name, Psilocybe Cyanescens. In layman’s, it is neurological loss, or a found friend.
II. Creatures created by God exudes beauty, therefore; daddylonglegs,bladed nose,fruit bearing hips, snow white, black cock. If these requirements are not met, beer.
III. Fast for a week. Don’t consume meat. Refrain from selfindulgence. Flee from the city concrete jungle. Far away, filledwith green. A home. The place was beautiful. Light some sage.In the pavilion, on chouzubachi, scoop and let water cascadedown to your left hand, to your right hand, to your lips. Wash.Measure, three grams. Cut, two whole lemon. Squeeze. Brew, cure, consume.
IV. Whisper my name
Make me from mud
To ribs and relations
To exceed expectations
Eden, in the middle
V. The silence of the prayers reached the angel’s ear. They bloom into flowers and scatter around. Take another cup.
VI. Flower this poem and fill its crevices a yellow room blooms gloom, or rainbows electrons wreaks havoc and speaking in tongues a metallic taste – insanity is just prejudice fireworks bleeds in rivers, bringing color to the sea flowered rivers rushing me to sleep.
VII. Take another cup. Brew, cure, -
VIII. If consumed with intentions, be set free. In Eden, a blameless serpent.
IX. Twenty-five or forty minutes to manifest. Don’t take this seriously, don’t take yourself seriously, don’t take your thoughts too seriously. Running away is easy It’s the leaving that’s hard.
X. The mountain, a face. The carpet, a river. On the moon, a woman. The sun, a ship. The music, guidelines. The DJ, a shaman. The fungi, truth or demise. The mind, liminal. The TV, a conversation. The brew, a journey. Space, to fill. Wall, to conquer. Paint, classic weaponry. Empty canvas, fear – and chance. Empty house, not home. A demand letter, hands grasping for throats. Breath in, cover space. In transition, vulnerable. Tinnitus, comfort. Me, precariat. Apologies, absinthe. Heartbeat, warning. We, hold our breath in fear of spaces. Empty house, soul flaying. Me, sterile. In movement, filling spaces with me. Skin, a cover. Flaying, liberation. The cabinet, breathing.
XI. This is a list of a thousand dreams and nightmares: Barney and friends, Tinkie, Winkie, Lala, Po, Dipsy and the baby sunburns your eyes, A danceless dance floor, Barbiedoll underpart, Tetragrammaton, Slow submerging body, burning in a stake, unheard poetry, rusty guitar strings, trash baby cries, a dancing God, 12:64 am and pm, empty words from a full man, nipple-less breasts, penis- less balls, Pepe Smith dying.
XII. We thread our fate in our palms until clasped shut, in a prayer
XIII. Let transistors scream static cover silence. We hold our breath in fear of spaces. Let your ears bloom red. Let me move, not simply a runaway. Do not hold your tongue. Let me shed my skin. Speak metallic. On the seventh day, let me rest.
big vase
Inside a vase a
layer of unused curtains, to cover, to ferment, let fester
children’s toys, clashing, fighting an eternal war
retaso round rags, clean, disinfected, unused
dirt forming soil
bottles of pilsner, hidden, empty
forgotten prayer books, unheard
DVDs, with scantly clad women in front, in the middle a big dong
old childhood photos, babies, growing up, teenagers
seasonal usage decorations, fake bats and a jolly fat man in a red suit
dangerous, explosive, fire hazard, Christmas lights
songs unheard, jazz, metallic, waiting to be electric
poems, prayers, waiting to be spoken to life
a space for hiding, claustrophobic, crushing, comforting, embracing
dreams buried, kept
broken things, forgotten things, kept things, thrown things, and all things
a dead rat
preferred spot
I cry a lot
Or not maybe in sleep
To wake to sleep
I cry a lot breathe warm to dry pillow sheets stained
I cry a lot
A code:
Hello my name is –
I don’t cry
No men cry in world
I am not
Men don’t Cry however, I a lot
Cry a parlance for weak knees weak knees stumble closer to ground hide in closet in code
Hello, I- my name is –I don’t cry in open
I can’t breathe
Toughen up
lungs
Real me don’t
Real men don’t Show weak knees and spaces
horror vacui
All it takes to uproot are rolls of packing tape, used balikbayan boxes stackable-wheeled, Home Gallery plastic containers. A continuous denouement, spiral delirium. My mother told me she will be moving back, home. Only curses come to roost. On her way, she will be spitting on the heavens, wailing. She cursed herself, her son. I am sorry, I am a curse. At least curses return home.
They carried off the couch, the cabinets, unused display cooking pots, unused display plates, ceramics, ceramic dolls, their eyes, no longer following. A firetruck toy forever tangled with a yo-yo. Green plastic army men in a forever war - toys that you only remember owning when leaving. Synthetic abaca sofa. Frames – and lots of pictures. The mother once pricked her fingers doing cross-stiched patterns, on nights sleep eludes. The patterns once adorned these walls. We pack them tight. We left off with what we can carry, with what is still ours.
An absent furniture leaves shadows. Spots that we haven’t seen for so long, in the corner, un-dusted undersides. Dusts, cobwebs, spots newer than others, spots unkempt, spots older. Without curtains, the windows were naked, undressed. The sun penetrates deeper in the house, casting space.
Can we have this instead? the buyer points at my personal collection of gunpla kits. They asked me to leave it, and they will be adding a couple of thousands more. They asked me to leave my collection of HG Grimgerde Phenex type RC Version Gundam Front Silver Gundam Astray Red Frame HG 00 Gundam Seven Swords Dijeh 1/100 Savior Gundam HGand I built everything myself for months here and abroad painstakingly smoothing snubs with sandpaper grit and grease slowly building something for myself and I can’t get over the fact that they will be given away. Why? Is this to offer more of myself? My mother offered hers by the whole. Why do I need to? To help a bit? To take myself apart? These are mine. Let their own kids build their own shit. My children would love to have them, and it would give their room personality! She smiled. It’s rotten. I hate it.
Maybe I am dying now. But I don’t want to remember. In the backyard, we buried our dog Dugay. In the garden I once fell asleep beside her drunk, while she licks my face. Here in these steps I nearly crashed our car. It’s hard to park here, you know. I wish the newcomers would crash their car too. Puke their entrails out and split their head in hangovers. I tripped here once, balls blue, vomit violet. I wish their dog will die too, her decaying body to be buried here. I wish the children will cry when they fight with their parents. I once kicked a whole on my bathroom door, in anger. I went down the stairs blood following my feet.
My cousins grew up staying here over summer. At night we play hide and seek. Seeking every nook and cranny, every secret unseen space, to hide. We remembered all the best spots in this house. We hid, stiffing our laughter. I look around at the house now. Sterile. I am just dying, the house is empty. I can see everything. I can’t hide anywhere.
