“Sanctum” explores honor after death, spirituality
The mixed media piece pictured above, "Transmute," is from Alexandra Rumsey's show "Sanctum" which will be on display with the rest of the gallery until October 15th at Grady Goods. All photos by Haiden Hall.
LOUISVILLE — Dried and dead leaves scattered the floor of the back, gray room of Grady Goods on Baxter Avenue, immediately drawing visitors into the natural, mournful, and beautiful installation during its opening on Sept. 13.
After five months of working on the gallery titled “Sanctum,” Louisville tattoo and fine art artist Alexandra Rumsey revealed over 20 paintings and mixed media pieces to the public. Each piece depicts and honors deer through various media and emotions.
Rumsey began working on the pieces in the show after a traumatic finding of at least 10 deer corpses in the woods that had been poached for their antlers. With the remains of the found bones, Rumsey set out to create art that both honored the animal and depicted who they were.
Elements from Gaelic traditions and Paganism inspired how Rumsey approached honoring the spirit of deer in the show. During her research, Rumsey learned of a matriarchal sect of the Ancient Caledonians that worshiped them.
“I found that to be really interesting, and so some of the titles, like for the doe pieces...can be translated to ‘the death mother’ or ‘the great mother,’ and they were definitely representative of that kind of idea of these doe matriarchal societies in Gaelic culture,” she said.
Natural components from Rumsey’s own Pagan practice were also incorporated into many of the mixed media pieces, such as black salt, cloves and rose petals. Each of these elements was used to give a protective barrier around the bones to honor the spirits and protect their journey.
“Like science says all energy can't be created or destroyed, and so they are going on to their next journey of essentially recycling, so it was all protective charms to help them along that journey,” Rumsey explained.
Rumsey cleaned all the bones herself, a process that she found to be both challenging and important. Because the artist follows the belief that pain is the price paid for love, she said that the pain and grossness of cleaning the bones had to be a part of the artistic process, since she loved the spirit of the deer and the artwork.
“I had to go through that disgust and anger and sadness, just like grieving anything else, in order to transcend these pieces to what they needed to be,” she said.
Walking through the installation, stepping on dead leaves, I was struck by the way Rumsey’s work was able to invoke a combination of emotions, from deep sorrow to something resembling hope. Coffin nails and dead roses were used in several of the mixed media pieces which highlighted the gravity of the work, while other parts, such as the moss and divine-looking frames, created a sense of beauty and splendor.
““I had to go through that disgust and anger and sadness, just like grieving anything else, in order to transcend these pieces to what they needed to be,” she said.”
While Rumsey has explored themes of death in most of her previous work, this approach to her art was new. Rumsey includes natural elements into her personal altar but using bones as a creative element or even painting deer was an untrod territory.
Rumsey has in the recent past presented mixed media pieces about being pagan in a show called “Spells,” where she also used elements like the black salt.
Rumsey said that it made a lot of sense from an evolutionary standpoint as an artist for Sanctum to be based around both Pagan ideologies and the concept of death.
Rumsey co-owns a gallery on Shelby Street, Aurora Gallery & Boutique, with artists Lyndi Lou and Mia Farrugia. Though Aurora has a 50-foot-long gallery wall making up a substantial portion of the shop, Rumsey said she specifically wanted an isolated space for this exhibit.
“I wanted people to have to go in there, experience the show, and then when they leave, then there's the boutique work,” she said.
Rumsey explained that the two skylights in the backroom of Grady Goods helped to create a mystical, holistic experience in tandem with the altar in her show when the light shines through in a particular way.
“At between 2:30 to 3 o'clock every day, that light comes through the skylight, and I happened to position the bowl, the offering bowl, in such a way on the altar that the light hits and it illuminates the bowl,” she said.
In addition to having viewers experience the gallery in the way Rumsey imagined, showing at Grady Goods gave her the opportunity to support a small business whose message she liked.
Rumsey and Grady Goods owner Jae Grady shared a similar sentiment of striving to support and collaborate with artists and galleries in the same business, staving off the idea of competing or participating in a rat race.
“It's Louisville creatives helping each other out to get our messages and our emotions and our everything else out, and to kind of represent Louisville in a real sort of way that’s not so curated,” Grady said.
Overall, Rumsey felt like she said everything she needed to and found that the show did exactly what she wanted it to do: make people feel and think.
“I appreciate things for just being beautiful, but I really, I like to pose a question or to make people confirm something on a deeper level if I can,” she said.
The show will be on display at Grady Goods, 620 Baxter Avenue, until October 15. Rumsey can be found on Instagram @alexrumseyart or on her business Facebook: Alexandra Rumsey. The pieces in Sanctum can be purchased online at GradyGoods.com.
