scabbing — Barbara Alicia Astronomo, interview
Barbara Alicia Astronomo, Waverly, Baltimore, MD, 2023
scabbing is a solo exhibition by interdisciplinary artist and writer Barbara Alicia Astronomo, on view at Mount Royal Tavern from July 3 to August 5, 2025. Through raw and ritualistic paintings, drawings, and poems, Astronomo explores the violence of healing — the scab as both barrier and bridge, evidence of survival and site of return. The exhibition traces themes of language, ancestry, control, self-harm, and the body as archive, offering a deeply personal mythology that invites viewers to look closer — inward, outward, and toward each other — to shape new languages of care, resistance, and kinship.
Visitors are invited to book a private walkthrough of the exhibition [click here].
Key public dates include:
7/13, 10 pm - 2 am, Mount Royal Tavern – Barbie’s 22nd Birthday (Open Studio)
7/19, 10 pm - 2 am, Mount Royal Tavern – Scarlett Star x Grifter160 (Open Studio)
7/27, 6 pm - 8 pm, Creative Alliance – The Big Show Meet & Greet
8/3, 10 pm - 2 am, Mount Royal Tavern – Closing Reception (Open Studio)
You can view the virtual component to the exhibition, resources / commodities, [here].
1. First off… how are you feeling? Not just about the show being up — but about you, the person who made it all.
Number one, I am so exhausted, but today I don't even feel it. I haven't slept at all today. At 8 am, I took a walk. I went to Maillard Patisserie, one of my favorite places. I used to go there all the time when I was living in Waverly. It would be my treat when I was super, super faded, sprung up from painting all night long. I would feel fucking insane when I was muraling at my house at the time. So I would walk there, read The Last Night of the Earth Poems by Charles Bukowski, and stare at myself eating pastries. I made friends with Akiko and Shannon who worked there. I find it to be a little place of solace, a little home for me. Baltimore is made up of these little homes and pockets. I’m honored to be at home.
Being invited to be in this exhibition is a full circle moment. When I first moved to Baltimore, I got picked up by my new two drunk roommates at MRT. I've been living in Baltimore as an adult for two years. I was born in Baltimore, but I didn't grow up here. I grew up in Woodbridge, Virginia. The scene is very different there — I didn’t grow up in an artist community. At the time, I didn’t realize that being an arts administrator was a possible career path; the schools there push you into defense and IT.
Being able to be here in Baltimore as an adult, being able to see and experience all my accomplishments, coming from having virtually no experience, volunteering, being broke, stealing from the store, not having any concept of how I was going to make it, being so afraid, partying myself to oblivion to try to escape all of the stresses of survival — and the whole time, I am still surviving. My CV is popping. So many people are excited for me.
I'm so proud because honestly, when I was invited to exhibit, I thought it was a group show. I just found out that it was a solo show this past Wednesday. That completely shifted how I approached the show — I had to lock in, reflect, go through all the work in my house. I was actually surprised that I filled the whole wall. There’s work from two years ago, there’s work from this week. There’s poems from the past year. I got to reminisce over all the work I’ve lost in the process, that I can only show you photos of.
I'm so happy that Ben and Chloe decided to pull me out from my little shell because honestly, I will sit here and ponder and wonder about all the things that need to be done to make everything perfect. I want everything to be right, but I'm realizing now it's like, you know what? People need to see all of the stuff that's been going on underneath the surface. People, they really need to see some progress, some work in progress art. The work is supposed to encourage its audience to pick up the pencil, just make something. It's OK. The fact that you made something — every little bit that you do is going to build up to something incredible, something bigger. You got to take 100 ugly photos before you get a real good one, right? You make a bunch of mistakes before you get it right, and only you are going to know when you get it right. These pieces are relics from different parts of my life. I have so many little trinkets I want to share, so many little special memories that are not even little. They're huge. They're monumental. They've changed my life. Absolutely. Every moment has changed the course of my life. Dramatically. And this is one of them.
2. Let’s talk about the title — scabbing. It’s visceral; it suggests healing, trauma, labor, recovery, something crusted over, maybe even shame. What does “scabbing” mean to you in the context of this exhibition? Where did the title come from?
“Scabbing” symbolizes the cycles of coping and regulation — short-term relief for long-term damage — while living in a system that refuses to care for us. I’ve had eczema ever since I was a little kid; it’s absolutely wrecked me. I'm scratching my arm right now. I am extremely sensitive to pollutants; sugar, dye, chemicals, smog, smoke, pollen, cat fur, sweat, heat, dryness, just every single thing. I’m trying to escape it through documenting and reflecting on my experiences.
Scratching is an insane addiction. It feels so great and texturally, it's vile. Self-harming is a way for my body to become a forum of my experiences. It's a way for me to document grief and angst and fear and anxiety and hope. My body is constantly healing, and then I pick at it. Sometimes I feel like I'm holding myself hostage. I know that I'm not supposed to hurt myself, but I'm watching myself do it anyways.
breaklife, Barbara Alicia Astronomo, 2024, acrylic, oil pastel, plastic cigarette on concrete slab
This past November, I returned to psychiatric care, and got diagnosed with BPD. Honestly, I was clicking my heels. I was so happy to have a diagnosis because the care that I had previously received wasn't suitable for my needs. Mental health care scares me because my life is in someone else's hands. They don't necessarily know what they're doing. They're just as liable to be a butcher. I wish I could say that I could trust every single doctor with my body, but people fuck up. People die in the hospital all the time. When I was a teenager, I had horrible responses to the first three psychiatric meds I was prescribed. The third one prevented a PTSD episode, but caused me to go unconscious, hit the back of my head on the tub, and bleed all over the floor. After that, I had stopped taking psychiatric medicine until November 2024. I’ve been self-medicating the whole time.
I see my peers coping with drugs, self-neglect, treating people around them poorly. It’s strange, but rational, that we are prone to self-destructing, even when we grow up wishing to become our best selves. Once we’re exposed to the reality (cruelty) of the world, we have to confront our responsibility to it; we must hold each other accountable in the systems we partake in.
How can we heal those wounds? How do we fix things when we realize that we were wrong? How do we account for those mistakes? How do we learn how to caretake and provide space for others? How do we learn how to hold each others' pain?
3. There’s a kind of “meta” narrative that sits over the whole show. It’s not just about the works — it’s about you doing the work, losing and finding yourself while making it, showing up again and again. Could you walk me through how this work was excavated — what had to be unearthed or sacrificed in the process?
We are inheritors of generational curses — whether your family was oppressed or the oppressor. Mine are both. I've been a vessel for grief, and emotional archival.
I've learned that I have to conquer the conquester. I've wrestled with the word conquest because it's a trauma word related to ownership, objectification, and dehumanization. But if we’re going to survive, we have to take back what has been stolen.
Living in resistance to oppression is terrifying when you know it might guarantee violence. The act of feeding people, creating safety, community is enough to get you labeled a terrorist and killed. Care is viewed as conspiracy.
I’m realizing how much of my identity was projected onto me. How much of all our identities are shaped by guilt, shame, coercion, bullying. As a biracial person, I’ve always felt like I was standing at a crossroads. I carry my Filipino ancestry in my skin and blood, but I don’t speak the language. I don’t have access to my homeland.
My mom is traumatized. She’s seen people get killed in front of her. She’s afraid I’ll be kidnapped and held for ransom. The place she honeymooned was blown up days after she left.
My American lifestyle wouldn't fly in the Philippines. I'm not Catholic or fully white. I'm not a capitalist, patriot, or a nationalist. But these are the systems my people were forced into. My people are bleaching their skin to be palatable. My people speak English. My people celebrate Christmas. They want to be Western. They want to kiss the boot that buried their families’ bones, in order to survive.
If we’re going to change anything, it has to start at the root. We need to confront our families, partners, and friends. How can I be a community leader if I'm not a community member first?
I'm learning how to communicate through my own art; I’m listening. Sometimes, I’ll move a certain way while painting, and suddenly I’ll be slammed with a flashback — I’m releasing bodily trauma through time travel. I’m suturing broken pieces across my psyche. And I know that’s my responsibility. I'm not entitled to anyone else's emotional labor.
I still ask for help. I believe I can’t help others without helping myself, otherwise, it’s a false performance.
Being an American is agonizing. We are always playing pretend, blind eye, avoidant, little white lie. And I don't think that shit's going to cut it anymore.
There have been times within the past week where I’ve failed to speak up for myself. I’m learning how to create that space for myself — I’m doing the work in increments. I'm learning how to fall in love with myself. I'm beautiful regardless of whether I have skin on my face or not; whether I'm being objectified or not. I get to make the decision to say that I deserve tender, loving care. I'm creating these boundaries and setting them. I’m not letting myself be exploited or abused anymore. I've spent 20 years brushing myself under the rug. It's time for me to spend 20 years shining light through myself.
self portrait, Barbara Alicia Astronomo, 2024, photograph of mixed media
4. tell us more about the significance of teeth, self-harm, self-portraiture, and haunting past works in this show.
My eczema is a reactive, inherited condition. For me, scratching, blood, picking, scars, regeneration, is all a language of pain and survival. I'm used to everyone being concerned about my eczema. I know that, of course, we all want to be healthy and beautiful. We all want to be full of vitality. But to be honest, I've come to a level of peace with my eczema; I know that when I'm bleeding, it doesn't mean that I'm ugly. I'm in pain. Using my skin and body as a forum reveals my desire to revolt through ugliness. I've been objectified my whole life. Even when I was a child, people have preyed on me because of their perception of my beauty, of my identity. Being ugly and violent is a defense mechanism. It’s like the I Ching: your internal world is externalized in your environment. Being in the right environment, creating my safe space, is how I get better. It's hard to heal when you're constantly bombarded with distress. My art is pretty much what I'm doing with my flesh, with my soul. I'm basically bleeding out in public.
Barbara Alicia Astronomo, Waverly, Baltimore, MD, 2023
Teeth are a symbol of regret, warning, decay, and survival based off appearances. The way that people perceive you can result in people helping you or hurting you. I inherited this omen from my mom who lost her teeth. She has replacements, and they're beautiful, they're gorgeous, but she mourns the feeling of eating — she says it’s not the same anymore. I feel as though my mom has been denied of a fundamental human experience, representing the cost of survival, and putting others’ needs before her own. I will admit that I live a pretty acidic life, my mouth has been bleeding for years. I hope that I will not repeat that cycle, but I'm also prepared to rock gold teeth if I have to. In the pre-colonial Philippines, we adorned our teeth with gold and jewelry, so that's ancestral pride that I'm willing to embrace.
My dad preserves his teeth meticulously. It's a symbol of social status for him; he’s obsessed with maintaining that appearance. The concept of aesthetic modification, to me, is an attempt of redemption and transformation because, again, of the concept of beauty, safety, climbing up a social ladder; the concept of being able to alter one's teeth, something that is attached to your skull, is more than cosmetic. Teeth are an archival altar of experiences. They reveal a lot about people, so, I emphasize the appearance of teeth when I am drawing “x-ray people.”
To me, the concept of “x-ray people” is built off of my distrust of others, secret language, and survival. It's about being able to see a person’s entirety through time travel, similarly to how the Tramalfadorians from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and Sirens of Titan see all of you when they look at you, from the moment that you were born to the moment that you're going to die. I believe that people are fluid beings. I am obsessed with the layers of the psyche. I wish more people understood the levels of their conscious and subconscious mind. There's a lot of things for us to unpack and unlearn. My art is my archive, my confessional booth. Even when I’m unimpressed or scared of my art, I ask myself questions — I am piecing my split identities together.
Whenever I find artwork that I don’t remember creating, it haunts me. I’m trying to figure out who I was and who I am through these artifacts — I read my own internal dialogue (ex: lines, symbolism, colors). I’ve come to understand that I’m describing a world of revolution, rebellion, integrity, strategy, boldness, and silence — again, a world built on survival, and the admission (or rejection) of vulnerability within it.
5. There’s a lineage here: parental influence, chosen family, the homes that nearly swallowed you while they held you. Can you talk about some pieces where that inheritance feels loudest?
life (2023) is the symbolic cornerstone of the show. Loss is a central theme in the painting, which is why the piece is layered with found and personal objects. It’s a form of hoarding, archiving, holding, and reorganizing memory. The meaning may appear ambiguous or decorative to strangers, but to me, every object holds a story; I can tell you about each one. The piece is an altar — to what was, and what could have been. I see myself as the record-keeper of my life.
The work references birth, copulation, and defecation. It begins with an acrylic base layered with oil pastel — a gesture toward nature, earth before industrialization. All of the objects embedded in the work — toothbrushes, broken beads, cigarettes smoked by old housemates — might be considered trash if you found them on the street, but to me, they’re relics.
The piece alludes to familial inheritance, whether it's emotional, psychological, or financial. There’s a message from my parents on my 18th birthday — “Goodbye, childhood!” — which documented the last deposit they made in my savings account before I moved out and left home.
At 19, I moved to Los Angeles, thinking I’d stay there forever. I brought everything with me. But three months later, I was flying back to Baltimore — after losing my car, my savings, family heirlooms, and a version of myself I thought I knew. life (2023) is an attempt to control the chaos that followed.
The other piece, mother (2024-25), is a small pen drawing, but it’s one of the loudest works in the room. It’s a reinterpretation of a painting called Facade that my friend BlissArmyKnife made of me in 2022, when we were still getting to know each other. I was honored to be painted, eating Honeygrow with a mask slipping from my bloody, snapped off neck.
As I’ve grown into adulthood, I’ve tried to suppress emotions that people walk away from and can’t handle. Facade made those feelings visible. Over time, my relationship to the image evolved. I started integrating my shame with my capacity to transform.
In mother (2024-25), I feel like Saturn eating his children, or Kali Maa after slaying Raktabija. There’s ogre-ishness, toughness, a mythic strength — something that also shows up in self-portrait 6 (2024), a drawing of a dominatrix choking out a submissive man. I drew it on Valentine’s Day.
self portrait 6, Barbara Alicia Astronomo, 2024, pencil and crayon on paper
Self-portraiture has become one of my most critical tools — as reflective as re-reading old journals or reviewing photos of myself. The original painting, Facade, even became part of my video game, VITALICIO (2024), which I presented at Onlē Vibez’s Open Forum on April 14, 2024.
Still from VITALICIO (video game), Barbara Alicia Astronomo, 2024; featuring Facade by BlissArmyKnife, 2022, acrylic on canvas
The goal of the project was to make an autobiographical artwork that felt alive. The premise of the game is that the player is a guest in my home. I ask if you'd like to read a book, take a nap, listen to music, or play dress-up — a sequence that features Facade. Although the dress-up sequence was tedious to code, it taught me how to build dialogue trees — moments where the player’s choices reshape the world around them.
Featuring Facade in that sequence mirrors the sensation of having my appearance manipulated. The player chooses how I look, how I’m seen. I become an interface — a body to explore, style, or observe. It echoes how often I’ve been perceived as a surface. I am an image to be adorned, interpreted, or projected onto.
Alicia Astronomo talks>VITALICIO: EP 3; live demonstration of Barbara Alicia Astronomo’s 2024 video game, VITALICIO, at Open Forum at Onlē Vibez, April 14, 2024
6. talk about the virtual component.
The virtual component to the show is significant because my first solo exhibition, (clone)physics, was virtual. I prepared my future self by acting as both artist and curator. The exhibition contained my work from 2019 to 2023, from Virginia, D.C., California, Arizona, to Baltimore. The exhibition spanned seven weeks, with the show rotating subsections weekly, ending with the release of my first poetry collection turned album, piggy bank tightrope. I used Virtual Art Gallery — my heart goes out to the developers.
I enjoyed making my works virtually huge, imagining big screen prints and projections of my works. I referenced what I’d seen after poking around The National Gallery of Art, the Renwick, the National Portrait Gallery, Hauser and Wirth, the Broad, the Getty, and the BMA. At the time, my mind was fixated on the international art sector’s impact; how much more international could you get when you’re using the Internet?
The timing of that exhibition coincided with my first appearance in my first group exhibition, No Batteries Attached, at the Black Genius Art Show. I also created a virtual model of that show that was presented during its opening reception.
The same month, two years later, I’m in a solo and a group exhibition again. Again, full circle moment. You’ll see works like bhagavad gita (2023), free acid (2023), and the kiss (reversed) (2023) on display in scabbing.
The virtual addition to scabbing was conceived in a pretty similar way. As MAXGallery’s art director, I curated a group exhibition, which I also became a part of. Simultaneously, I was planning my second virtual solo exhibition.
Last year, when I was working the door at a venue, I made the mistake of leaving my purse at the door; I got up to get another drink, came back, and my purse was gone. That purse symbolized me coming into womanhood. I was turning 21 when I moved from Waverly to Mount Vernon. I was learning how to care for myself. My skin was healing. I was feeding myself. I looked and felt incredible. I was truly independent, for the first time.
That purse held $100 of watercolors and brushes, a half of weed, a beer (all of which, I had just bought), my house key, and artworks that I was being stingy about. I didn't want anyone to see them “until the time was right.” Those artworks were relics of a transitional period in my life, so their value to me was beyond material. I spun out so bad that night that my friend told me to go see a psychiatrist, because, as she said, “You're not supposed to wake up every day with anxiety.” And I said, “Really?”
All those stolen works were included in the virtual exhibition that I was planning.
I was doing way too much at the time, but I was knocking everything out. The group show was ready. My virtual solo was ready. I had planned out and facilitated the first demo of naked art museum, featuring literary readings, film screenings, artist talks, an open mic, a curated library, and community aid offerings, through Kumospace, a virtual office platform.
I grew up off of PlayStation Home, Free Realms, Webkinz, and GTA Online. I consider the Internet as a third space.
Leading up to the opening reception of scabbing, I played Jerry Paper and Cole Kush’s Dr. Javier Genneheigen's Chameleon World again, a video game that was released with Paper’s album, Big Pop for Chameleon World.
I love dorking out about it and showing it to people; it inspired the creation of VITALICIO.
Start page for VITALICIO, Barbara Alicia Astronomo, 2024
The second virtual solo exhibition that I was planning never aired because Virtual Art Gallery went offline last August, but they’re back online now, so you know what that means.
Still from “resources / commodities: scabbing,” Barbara Alicia Astronomo, (2024-25)
When you first pop into the exhibition, you're greeted with pixelated images of a bucket of water, an orange, a cow, two credit cards; faraway, in the distance, you see a pixelated image of a hammer alongside three images of my naked body.
Still from “resources / commodities: scabbing,” Barbara Alicia Astronomo, (2024-25)
Originally, there were videos of performances from my pieces “the dance” (2022) and “cold key, cradled ghost” (2022); in their place are selected poems from Porcupine (2024).
(As the artist, let me know if you want to see them, then I’ll see if I want to show them to you.)
Right from that is a pixelated gasoline can: would you rather turn left or right?
Still from “resources / commodities: scabbing,” Barbara Alicia Astronomo, (2024-25)
If you turn left, you end up in a room that I call love and diagrams. In the center is a playthrough snippet of VITALICIO (2024).
This features collections such as 10 frames, which are sketches of 70’s group sex, where I project my own life experience onto the characters.
Still from “resources / commodities: scabbing,” Barbara Alicia Astronomo, (2024-25)
Return to this room, and you'll see my collection, self-portraits (2024), angular, chaotic nudes (that I drew (and left behind) at an ex-lover's house (except for self-portrait 6 (2024), which I drew in my own home)). Featured are self-portraits such as hollow (2024), leaning against the back wall (2024), mother (2024-2025), and golden west (2024). The original self-portrait series was very chaotic and bold, but also hollow and sad.
The Game (2024) taught me that I don't want my relationships to be transactional anymore. It’s associated with chess, deception, and disappointment; it reminds me to stop playing games when I know my probability of winning.
Still from “resources / commodities: scabbing,” Barbara Alicia Astronomo, (2024-25)
In the center of my virtual exhibition is my audiovisual work, copy-copy-copy-copy-copy-copy-copy (2023-24), a video featuring my song baby (2023), and poems from my unreleased collection, “saturn takes a nap” (2023).
It opens with provocative imagery of my body and my bedroom mural; overlays of my mixed media photography share space with my poetry. Viewers catch me laying pieces from 12 steps to self-mastery (i hope god likes it) (2023) before I turn my webcam onto my pixelated naked body, which fits into the grooves of scans of my oil pastel drawings on concrete slabs and self portraits on my walls.
My artwork and I share the same soul. As an audience member, you are not permitted to see how my body fits into these crevices (until you look left and right at uncensored stills of the video; my eyes are the only judge present). You are invited to imagine how that would work. You see imagery that is rough, jagged, and concerning.
There’s an additional component to the virtual exhibition that I need to tidy up… keep your eyes peeled for it.
7. Alongside the visual works, there are poems on the wall. What role does writing play in your practice?
I’ve been writing and drawing ever since I was 4. I used to make handmade books with illustrations and narratives. When I was 9, I made my first DeviantART account, posting poetry to an international audience of fellow artists from my bedroom. It gave me an early sense of what it meant to share process, passion, and progress with others online.
In high school, I would write poems as gifts to my friends and partners. When I graduated in 2021 and bought my car, I started performing spoken word poetry across northern Virginia and DC. In 2023, I made my first experimental rap EP, slob rap. vol 1, in Los Angeles. I followed up with my second poetry-to-audio project, piggy bank tightrope, in Baltimore, 2023 and finished the visuals in 2024.
In scabbing, I’m exhibiting selections from three poetry collections:
Porcupine (2024) – a fast-paced freeform project based on dream logic that I completed over one month (September 30–October 31, 2024).
Drip (2025) – a violent and sobering collection written for NaPoWriMo 2025
Scabbing (2025) – a memoir-esque poetry collection written in June 2025
One of my poems, “agape mouths and feeble ears,” was published in Issue 4 of Skirting Around Magazine in February 2025, and I performed excerpts from my unreleased collection bowling ball at their launch party.
8. One thing I love is that this exhibition refuses to be neat. There’s unresolved pain, there’s joy that’s still cracking open. How do you feel about people witnessing something that’s still in process — where healing, identity, and self-worth aren’t “done”?
Everybody needs to witness in-progress work because we're all living in progress. None of us are complete. Even when somebody dies, that doesn't necessarily mean they're complete, you know? So many people in my life have complained to me that they're not artists and they want to become one. To me, you have to start somewhere. I've been doing this since my childhood, it was an early form of expression. As I grew up, I started to draw in class. I would write raps during downtime at my cashier job.
Once I got old enough to learn that my hometown wasn't able to support the career that I wanted, I assimilated into an artist community so that I’d be able to do the work that I'm supposed to do. What's insane is that as soon as I left, they started to create artist initiatives. Really, we live in an abundant world. We need to stand up for things that we believe in, despite what we may have been taught.
I have to make art. Compare that to the whole concept of scratching and impulse and coping. I know that I need to speak up for my community. I know that our experiences need to be documented. I know that future generations will benefit from learning about an alternate world from what they've been subscribed to.
Knowledge is a virtue. I’ve learned about the reality of the ridiculous world through selective media that I found through my community. Me and the authors of that media agree that we should be protecting the earth. We should be giving back to it.
There's no bird that's going to survive without getting the worm, but we still need to think about how we engage with our environment.
We need to understand that we are members of our community. We're not just leaders, although we are leaders; our leadership is what impacts our entire system.
My solo exhibition is a symbol of leadership. I know that it's my time to step up.
There’s so much programming that I’ll be involved in after this exhibition is over — I need a minute to wrap my head around it.
9. Why should a collector bring a piece of this show into their home?
Not only does it support me in the short term world of survival, but it also helps my message reach larger audiences (depending on who you choose to share that message with).
10. What do you want to take with you from this show, and what are you leaving behind?
This entire exhibition has taught me how my body, mind, and soul operate under pressure and performance. I've proved to myself that I can showcase my inner world from scratch. This is not something that I just came up with. This is work that I've been cultivating for years. This is self-work that I've been nourishing.
I see the emotional imprints of everyone who's witnessed and been a part of the work. I thank everybody who has been alongside me, who has supported me, kept me sane and fed; who has encouraged me to be the ultimate version of myself; who have listened to me cry, encouraged me, and wanted the best for me.
I'm also understanding who my audience is. I'm learning who's staying, listening, and disappearing. I'm learning that I don't need permission to make space — whole time, I am the space. I don't need to overexplain or justify my own presence. I need to support myself and my community. I am not just an artist doing her best; I am a working artist.
Every scar that I have is to my benefit; it’s time to shed all of those preconceptions, all of those projections, all of those old wounds. This is a time of reclamation and revolution.
