‘Creatures of Apathy’ Explores the Grotesque Sides of Humanity

Illustrator Paul Eric Roca is known as a political cartoonist and for his book illustration. Both roles utilize bizarre, fantastical images to contrast with the mundanity of everyday life. For Creatures of Apathy, however, Roca finds himself tapping into creating monstrous images to reflect the horrible natures hiding within every society. 

Showing at Altro Mondo Creative Space until February 22, Creatures of Apathy finds Roca conjuring surreal images of torture as familiar shapes become freakish and alien to our typical feelings. At times, Roca plays around with hellish art that would look appropriate for something like Disney’s Fantasia, if hopelessness was a part of the Disney brand.

“Roca conjures monstrous figures that reflect the fragmentation of contemporary society,” the write-up said. “These figures, strangely familiar yet disturbingly unfamiliar, are metaphorical signposts of a world on the brink, offering cautionary tales woven from personal experience and the daily onslaught of political turmoil.”

Embodying the Decay of Society

With Roca’s experience as a political cartoonist in publications like The Manila Bulletin, one would think that would take center stage in the exhibition. And at times, it does; “Birth of Malaise,” for example, would definitely fit in alongside caricatures of politicians and such. 

But while every painting here feels larger than life, Creatures of Apathy reminds one more of his children’s books like Si Ching na Takot sa Dilim. In that book, the child feels haunted by different fearsome visions of the night, only remedied by the light. In the end, the child finds comfort in the vastness of nature and the light it emanates.

Unfortunately, no comfort like that exists for Creatures of Apathy. Roca gives us what amounts to a nihilistic depiction of a flawed society where anger and unrest is the norm. There is no comfort in these images; only horror.

Some of the shadow work found in Si Ching na Takot sa Dilim can also be seen in “Incantation 01-04.” Those are a series of paintings by Roca that portray the melted visage of a human face, hovering across a background of hellfire and darkness. It is haunting and hopeless, looking like surrealist interpretations of quasi-religious exploitation films like Manos: The Hands of Fate.

“His works are steeped in the tension of an unpredictable future, where each brushstroke underscores the precariousness of existence,” the exhibit write-up said. “The chaos of ever-escalating news, the widening gaps between social classes, and the profound sense of societal stagnation all find their way into his haunting canvases. The artist presents these ‘creatures’ as exaggerated, grotesque forms, their monstrous distortion mirroring the very instability of the world we inhabit.”

Jumping into Our World’s Ugliness

Most of the other works portray human-like figures consumed by different chimeras that represent aspects of Philippine society. “Paens of Despair,” for example, contains a three-faced carabao-like creature with fiery hands coming out of its body. Another painting, “Confluence of Despair,” provides a skinless creature with an eye on its tongue. It seems to be in the midst of eating a shadowed man with multiple heads coming out of their body.

Paul Eric Roca crafts these images in deliberately cartoony ways, with disproportional head and body sizes as well as exaggerated emotional poses. But it doesn’t take away from the shocking nature of the art. In fact, it may very well invite viewers to revel in the grotesqueness as it sticks to one’s mind like gum on your shoe. 

“His fantastical and surrealist works serve as haunting allegories,” the exhibit write-up said. “[They are] grotesquely twisted visions that transform the familiar into the bizarre and the strange.”

Fighting Against Apathy

Most of the human-shaped beings in the paintings remain passive participants in the atrocities done to them. It appears to be a bigger point that Roca seems to point out in how ordinary people respond to them. Instead of fighting back, they slink away into nothingness, afraid to fight back. 

How do we cope with the ugliness of this world? Creatures of Apathy suggests that the only way to fight it is to fight it. The passive creatures in many of Roca’s works here allow themselves to be grinded up by the horrors. But only through pushing back can one really find a way out of the cycle of violence in our society today.

Creatures of Apathy will be exhibited at Altro Mondo Creative Space until February 22.

Photos by Elle Yap.

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