The Saints of Darkness introduced themselves to me during the dark summer of 2024. St. Timor was the first, followed by St. Dolor and St. Iudex. The rest followed within several months. They build the foundation of the cosmology in which the Agony and the Radiance are locked in theological warfare. This would later lead to deeper exploration in further collections.
I based every Saint on a particular symptom of depression that I had come to know over many repetitions, for example: St Timor represents the dread I felt in every waking moment, St. Iudex shows the psychological burden of an abusive inner critic, and Sta. Desperatio shows how deep depression can feel like gasping for dwindling air in a flooding cave. Each of these paintings were born in the misery that they depict.
In painting them, I felt like I was defining these feelings, and by confining them to their pages, it seemed like I was exerting a form of control over them, unlike I had ever done in the past. But despite this tenuous control, when the Saints of darkness pray, I pray that they pass me by. They bring little more than suffering. Suffering is all they know.
All Saints confined using acrylics on heavy A3 paper, 2024.
His jaw is locked in eternal exaltation, the sound of which causes all who hear it to shake and fall to their knees. This song echoes across the land, it is felt in the soil and within the bone. Blessed are those who prostrate themselves before the Song of the Radiance.
Act of Sanctification: His song conjured resistance as the Agony swept across the land. Despite pain and torture Timor offered his throat as the last expression of dread, through which the terror and fear of the unheard found expression. The Radiance took note and made Timor its first voice before all others.
Attributes: Gaping mouth, downturned praying hands.
Domain of Intercession: Fear and phobias, music, the voiceless and mute.
Commemoration: On days where darkness grows heavier than the light.
She is the Patron Saint of the night sky of the dark moon. Whereever her wrapped feet step, there wounds are numbed, and affect is replaced with acedia.
Act of Sanctification: She was once a woman lost in colours, dance, and lust. Where she went, noise and vibrance followed. But when the Radiance revealed itself, she shed her songs, her clothes, her name, and donned the pious garments of the Radiance, never to show even an inch of her skin again. She worships in silence as she moves across the agony-stricken land, following the dark moon both in pace and luminance.
Attributes: The body wrapped entirely in cloth, bound hands and feet, a face shrouded in a full, white mask.
Domain of Intercession: Intense emotions, expressivity.
Commemoration: New moon, Saturdays.
His is the hand that invades the chest to grasp the heart. He brings the pain of longing for what is irretrievably lost. He kindles the fire in the chest's cavity where love has left a void. He brings kindling to keep grief burning, he reopens the wound to ensure it won't heal. For when time and time have passed, and no other links remain, saying goodbye to grief becomes the most impossible farewell.
Act of Sanctification: The emptiness was too heavy a burden, the memories cut too deep, and the passage of time seemed impossible to bear. It was much easier, then, to cut out his own heart, to feel it pulsating in the voices of those he needed to hear just once more. The Radiance rewarded his piety and now St. Dolor intercedes on behalf of those who have loved and lost, and lost themselves in the process.
Attributes: A bleeding heart, a ghostly hand grasping the chest, mirrors fashioned out of black surfaces.
Domain of Intercession: Loss, feeling of hollowness, grief, in particular friends and lovers parted by death.
Commemoration: All Souls' Night throughout November.
The only Saint possessed of the gift of seeing through the Agony's veil. She sees through all of the possible pains and fears of those who pray to her, and grants them the peace of separation. The healing she brings to the faithful is both comforting and superficial.
Act of Sanctification: Uniquely blessed with the gift of Sight, she foresaw not only her death, but all possible deaths of those she knew. When the fire came, she stood in the sight of the Agony without perishing, but the sheer number of possibilities that made themselves known to her burned her eyes. The Radiance spared her from destruction. St. Seperatio remains as a beacon of hope, and grants those who pray to her absolution from pain.
Attributes: Cracks in pottery, golden thread, empty clay vessels.
Domain of Intercession: Divination, lies and truth, knowledge, particularly pottery, weaving, and embroidery, candles.
Commemoration: The night before the full moon.
St. Vulnus teaches that pain is the greatest healer, teacher, and gift to oneself. It distracts the heart and calms the mind. He is the only Saint whom the Radiance tolerates for carrying a spark of the Agony inside. This in itself may be St. Vulnus' greatest mystery.
Act of Sanctification: When the Agony came, he was ready. By the time it had passed, he stood as before, quaking in a self-inflicted ecstasy of the body and mind, never pausing to cry out prayers and psalms. His piety did not go unnoticed and the Radiance turned his needles into gold.
Attributes: Golden needles, cut flesh, instruments of torture.
Domain of Intercession: Psychological torment, obsessions, sadomasochism.
Commemoration: St. Vulnus is never commemorated or invoked.
The Diviner approaches those who need knowing. She shows possible futures, but she herself is blind.
Act of Sanctification: In an act of great sacrifice, she tore out her eyes on the eve before the Agony came. The Radiance answered her prayers. It filled her empty sockets with light, and put upon her head a golden crown, which whispered to her the many possible dangers that surrounded her and those she laid hands on.
Attributes: eyes, crowns inlaid with eyes instead of gems.
Domain of Intercession: divination, secrets, distrust.
Commemoration: dawn, political buildings, Mondays.
His eyes are forever turned inward.
So are his needles of gold.
Act of Sanctification: Iudex took the self-flagellatory comments and unspoken criticisms of his community onto his own shoulders. His peers flourished and became known far and wide as greatly talented artists. Iudex himself quivered upon an empty stage as the words pierced his flesh.
Attributes: Golden needles, gaping mouth.
Domain of Intercession: Creativity and exams. Insecurity. Social phobia and fear of public spaces.
Commemoration: In places of memory, theatres and concert halls. His guidance is invoked before examinations and legal trials.
The snake of guilt coils fast against his spine. Few know that Scelus himself has long since ceased to be. It is only the snake who rides him now.
Act of Sanctification: When the Agony came, Scelus offered himself to it to prevent the innocents of his community. So powerful was his prayer that the Radiance graced him with a companion who would always eat the guilt, leaving only what innocence remained behind.
Attributes: Snakes, particularly constrictors.
Domain of Intercession: Defense of innocence, protection against unfair accusation; children.
Commemoration: At schools and courthouses.
Only one breath left before the water fills her ears, her nostrils, her throat. Just one more. And another...
Act of Sanctification: She was buried beneath the rubble after the Agony tore across the land. The chamber flooded and Desperatio cried out with such fervour that the Radiance heard her in her despair. So beautiful were her cries, that she was elevated. Now, she cries and beats her hand against the walls, forever taking the last remaining breath of air, giving a voice to those who similarly drown within themselves.
Attributes: Deep water, the sound of fists banging against walls, wails beneath water.
Domain of Intercession: Seafarers and those who drowned; wells and crypts.
Commemoration: Wednesdays and in the evenings.
Act of Sanctification: Nex was the only one who welcomed the Agony with open arms. She accepted its fire without a sound. This stoic display of faith was rewarded by the Radiance. This is known, but Sta. Nex was never seen in this world again.
Attributes: Acceptance of adversity, suffering in harmony.
Domain of Intercession: Resolutions, acceptance of fate.
Commemoration: At midnight, at the new moon; at hospitals and cemeteries.