scabbing, a solo exhibition by Barbara Alicia Astronomo, will be on display at Mount Royal Tavern from July 3 to August 5, 2025. Through interdisciplinary paintings, drawings, and poems, her work bleeds and grinds just like her and her ancestors—making noise in a muzzled world. Astronomo navigates themes of language, ancestry, memory, responsibility, and repair, encouraging her peers to dedicate themselves to self-inquiry, authenticity, and expression.

At the heart of her exhibition is naked art museum—the embodiment of her dreams to create an accessible, autonomous incubator for community repair; a place to create, share, reflect, and revolt. The public is invited to attend open studio sessions at Mount Royal Tavern from 10 pm - 2 am on July 13 & 19, and again on August 3 for the closing reception.

Barbara Alicia Astronomo is an author, interdisciplinary artist, and arts administrator born and based in Baltimore, MD. Her visual and literary work has been featured in The Black Genius Art Show, Onlē Vibez, MAXgallery, Current Space, Creative Alliance, and Skirting Around Magazine. As an arts administrator, she focuses on art direction, event production, venue management, communications, grant writing, and studio support—bridging the space between underground culture and institutional critique.

Issues of her contemporary arts history zine, vomitmouth, will be available at Mount Royal Tavern, Red Emma’s, Normal’s, Current Space, Creative Alliance, O.K. Natural, and The Forest—check vomitmouth.org to know when to visit their bulletin boards!