Nyx Sanguino, blood, limbs and red butterflies exhibit at the Lakeside Branch Library

It’s the Artist of the Month evening at the Lakeside Library and the chosen one for September is Nyx Sanguino. With a presence to match her name, originated from the Latin word “sanguineus” that gave us “sanguine” people and sweet “sangria,” the exhibit holds the essence of blood, passion, and joy in the color of fire.

It’s the Artist of the Month evening at the Lakeside Library and the chosen one for September is Nyx Sanguino. With a presence to match her name, originated from the Latin word “sanguineus” that gave us “sanguine” people and sweet “sangria,” the exhibit holds the essence of blood, passion, and joy in the color of fire. Sanguino is from Colombia and introduces herself as “a photographer, oil and acrylic painter, makeup artist, writer and poet.” She comes from a special family of one of a kind people who made the international news with their stories. Her sister, Zuly Sanguino, was born without arms and legs and is a renowned painter, featured in countless news stories and documentaries showing her doing yoga, mouth painting and giving motivational speeches.

Born in Bogota to a poor single mother of six children married twice with abusive husbands, the second one to commit suicide after the birth of their disabled daughter, the two girls were raped for years as children and suffered from intense trauma in one of the most dangerous areas in Bogota. Sanguino had to earn her living early and spent her childhood in the street selling trinkets and doodling during stolen moments, as an 8-year-old facing a world with no kindness to spare for the children.

It’s painful to witness Sanguino sharing such stories in the most unusual setting. Raw confessions somehow sheltered inside an improvised shell of trust and expected confidentiality with a small circle of people gathered around her larger than life personality, and high voltage emotions. Her paintings are being watchful from high up the library’s walls, blindly red butterflies, sensual deep burgundy lips, limbs floating around, a geisha with a son represented by an immaculate mask. “My son, Ramses, was diagnosed with autism and we lived in Japan for a while,” she said.

She answers people’s questions dutifully, interrupted by jerky syncope of muted tears and lost in translation embarks or inside a past that keeps bursting to the surface in the most unexpected moments. Sanguino seems to struggle to remain grounded and collected, especially when paring indiscrete arrows about her journey to America and her status here. “I am a legal immigrant,” she replied to a sharp echo, despite the unanimous consent that nobody should ask about that.

Butterflies everywhere in her paintings, probably because they are so fragile and ephemeral, although they can beat gravity, liberated and beautiful, just like Sanguino. Wrapped in a fitted black mini-dress and burgundy velvet platforms for this special event, with bright red glass beads adorning her foxy red bangs, wearing smoky eyes make up and, of course, cadmium red lipstick. She displays the leftover demeanor of highly resilient immigrants rising from brutal environments who learned to look beyond the targeted in-your-face aggression, more of it bursting to the surface recently, by shielding it with blunt honesty and a polite smile hiding the hurt. Her art is so clean and pure, so sharp and forward, in such opposition with her traumatic upbringing where all the artistic myths and themes originate, like a pure essence up in smoke after a fire.

Images of a little boy with long blond hair pointing out to Chinese characters on yellow pieces of paper, a young, joyful woman without limbs holding a paint brush between her lips. Sanguino’s luscious bleeding colors on a canvas held (bought) by Sophia Vergara, a Harvard psychologist giving an interview after studying Ramses and many other recorded instances roll on the wide smart screen.

Sanguino’s autistic son, 10-year-old Ramses, awaits his official admission after being invited into the physics program at UCSD as a genius boy who speaks seven languages and was tested as a telepath by a Harvard alumnus. He is mostly quiet, orbiting around his mother following unseen, but strong vibration strings with the woman who knew she was “going to have a genius boy since he was inside my womb.”

“Ramses knew how to read in Japanese since he was 11 months old, played piano when he was one year old, knew all countries at 18 months. I remember when he asked me “Who is God?” when he was three. I named him Ramses Eros, to be strong and smart like the Pharaoh and have love like the Greek god,” she said.

Her art being sold out to numerous celebrities, Sanguino is now taking the first step on a new journey to bring art to people with disabilities. She wants to teach art and tell her family’s story rising to light from hardship despite their limitations. One of the Sanguino’s brothers born into extreme poverty and with no school arts available to him is a popular self-taught artist for his hyper realistic paintings.

“Disabilities and other constraints should not stop you from fulfilling your dreams,” she said. “I want to teach children with disabilities and to be creative, to use art to share their feelings and personal struggles.”

She is pointing out to a painting on the wall representing her disabled sister, Zuly Sanguino, the mouth painter. “It’s called The Goddess Without Limbs and you can tell she placed her legs and arms away from her, because she doesn’t need them anymore, she doesn’t care, she overcame her limitations. They don’t define her anymore.” 

Sanguino’s magical art exhibit is open to the public at the Lakeside Library for the entire month of September.