Sanctum
Grady Goods & ArtPunk Gallery, Louisville, KY, 9/2024
Alexandra Rumsey’s 4th Solo Show “Sanctum” was a holistic, installation experience that confronts the issue of the ethical treatment of wild animals. After stumbling upon the remains of a group of poached deer, she chose to honor these deceased and historically sacred animals through a spiritual lens. A portion of the profits of the sellable works (non installation components) were donated to Kentucky SPCA. (Kentucky Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)
This show featured 20 small acrylic ink paintings, and eight larger mixed media works.
Sacred
(This installation and body of work was a part of "The Wild Hunt" small group art show)
Aurora Gallery & Boutique, Louisville, KY, 12/2022
There are universal practices shared across all religions and faiths, commonality that they each share. One of them is that of the ex-voto, the votive offering. Often these material objects are offered to saints, deities, and where these offerings are located becomes a sacred shrine or holy place, a liminal space where further offerings may be deposited as an act of faith. Sometimes these sites hold reliquaries, which are sacred objects that often hold holy relics.
Sacred combines Christian and Pagan iconography in the form of ex-votos, or votive offerings. It is a sacred devotional installation site, an offering to the ancestors, to deities, to memories. These works of art are to stand as witness to divine presence, to honor and memorialize that we cannot see, to act as objects of faith. This body of work is about death and regeneration, the below and the above, the disintegration of the physicality of the body and disbursement of energy, the reformation and recombining of the self, touching the “divine”.
Spells
Raven's Roost Boutique, New Albany, IN. 02/2022
These pieces were created with the intent of imbuing self empowerment to the viewer. Black salt, sulfur powder, clay, epoxy, dried herbs, and flowers were incorporated into the works ritualistically. Movement, direction, cycles, and quarters are referenced in delicate strokes and wisps of color. The use of reflective surfaces in several works denotes the use of scrying, and the practice of shadow work.
It is through self reflection that we are able to transcend our traumas and embrace each moment fully. What frightens us is often something to run toward, not away from. The most difficult moments shape us and give us wisdom. Growth and freedom can be found in embracing the so-called darker elements of ourselves and of life. In the accompanying video there are images of snakes, trees, worms, fire embers, smoke, and violent waves. These reference the pentagram, the five elements, and the specificity of their representation harkens back to the dark Goddess, the Bucca, and correlates to the waning moon. This is a time of letting go of habits, memories, or thoughts that no longer serve you as you prepare for the new moon.
The Quiet I & II
Surplus Gallery, Carbondale, IL. 5/2014
Tim Faulkner Gallery, Louisville,KY. 12/2015
Alexandra Rumsey’s MFA thesis show, “The Quiet”.
The Quiet referred to the very moment of death, the quiet stillness of the body and the missing presence of its energy, or soul. Death and resurrection are consistent themes in every major culture and dominant religion as it is an inevitable reality of all life. The idea of physical death brings spiritual life and fulfillment to those that choose to acknowledge it. Secularly this idea could be simplified to the idea of the physical self, the flesh, becoming something else. Not simply decomposition or decaying of the body, but a simplified form that becomes one, whole, with the rest of this constant energy of life and matter.
The hanging forms are in a state of purgatory, unable to transform or transcend from this physical body into a spiritual new realm. They don’t connect to each pther, suspended in a state of isolation and slow dissipation. Each shadow implicated the presence of the participants among the passive hanging forms. In the second room, once you walk past or in-between the hanging forms, is a 50 foot column of fabric suspended from the ceiling, with a projected video of water flowing upward. A metaphor for the “soul” or essence leaving the body, and the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth.
