Horror Vacui

Exploring the horror of the void, or of that which fills it.

Paolo Vigo’s new solo exhibition moves away from the recent selection of works that made up *Children* (August–September 2011) and returns to introspective, hazy drawings on paper. The dual and fragmented figures that form a vital part of his distinctive iconography once again come together and repel one another beneath intense layers of blue and gold pigment – colours associated both with the luminosity of the intellect and with calm and balance– dominated by the gestural brushstrokes of the black smudges that cover the outlines of the bodies.

However, beneath the beauty of the details, virulent scenes emerge that take hold of the body’s most vulnerable surface: the chest. Eaten away by insects, flowers, small birds and vaginas, this cavity is overwhelmed and forced to displace the heart towards other areas no less dangerous. On the surface, these new inhabitants appear harmless; yet they conceal betrayal, decay and vulnerability.

The upheaval of the body, brought about by pain and an obsession with that which once was and is now but a shadow, is perceived in the heart’s eternal wandering across the entire bodily landscape and in the compulsion to infiltrate the body with a horde of alien and dangerous elements. Overwhelmed by a horror beyond its strength, the body decides to fight no more and chooses to submit – even with pleasure – to the yoke of desire and obsession, leaving behind a trail of desolation. For it is not those strange beings and their dire consequences that it fears, but the dark, damp hollow violated by the impending ghostly silence. That silence which, nevertheless, screams of absence amidst the darkness.

Valeria Quintana Revoredo

July 2012