Sanctum
It is the evening of July 29th and I am walking into the Bakery in much the same way that a sinner stumbles onto the steps of a church: eyes hungry and world-weary, searching for some semblance of quietude and rest. In other words, sanctuary. As I step through the door, I am greeted with a massive pair of patchwork arms poised for a hug (affectionately entitled “Lumpy Child”). I know that I will get what I came for.
“Lumpy Child” Installation by Fever Collective
I had spent the day working from home, hermetically sealed inside my apartment with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company. As you can imagine, dear reader, by the time my workday ended, I was dying to get out of my head and find refuge in anything that wasn’t me. “Sanctum” was the panacea I needed. Hosted by the Fever Collective, “Sanctum” is a meditation on what “safety” means to each participating artist in a post-pandemic America. The pieces ranged from eight-bit, cyanotype representations of an artist’s bedroom to pointillist drawings of cupped hands to gouache paintings of tarantulas and maggots.
As I walked around the gallery studying all of these different ideas of sanctuary, I began to notice a pattern: it seemed like the pieces were in conversation with each other, discussing their own dialectical representations of confrontation and comfort. According to Brittany Gabey, “This whole series is actually about my experience during the pandemic and lockdown. It’s been a very strange time for me in that, as we’ve all struggled through the pandemic in a variety of ways individually and as communities, my personal journey has been very reflective of that. Specifically during the pandemic, I had to shut down most of my lifestyle…but at the same time, I’d just started dating my partner Robert, and in the slowdown of the pandemic, I actually had time to develop a relationship in a way I hadn’t before.”
One of Brittany’s works is a direct representation of the tangle with discomfort and joy that many of us experienced during COVID. The piece, entitled “Exo”, is a skin-crawling portrait of a tarantula, maggots, and decay. “Exo” is a visceral representation of the tension that exists in the space between terror and love. Brittany explained that “I started keeping tarantulas during the pandemic, so even though it’s kind of a terrifying piece, I was able to confront my fear of spiders. I’m still very scared of them, but I love them so much now! The theme of this work highlights that contrast between something both pleasant and unpleasant.”
“Exo” by Brittany Gabey (12” painting on panel)
To some of the artists in the show, “sanctum” has nothing to do with an object or a physical space, but rather a lack thereof. For Hilary Kelley, “sanctum” exists in the freedom of the unknown. When asked about the stark, matte black background that she uses in her works, she said “Black is one of my favorite colors, and it’s one of my favorite ways to offset color and increase contrast. I find a lot of comfort in negative space and sometimes not knowing what’s there can be terrifying, but it can also be sort of freeing.” Hilary’s exploration of negative space led her to explore themes of family and religion, as her body of work for this show dealt largely with nebulous ideas that require the attention and care that only a painter could give.
While folks like Brittany and Hilary enjoy confronting the difficult emotions that come with unfamiliar territory, Amy Ashbaugh takes a different approach. She told me that her idea of “sanctum” is escapism. Her section of the show featured three pink and blue sculptures of sugary sweets, accompanied by a sizable painting of a castle that echoes the colors of the sculptures. “If you’re like me, you kinda like to tune out your problems and get away from them. When the world is just too much, you just have to get away. Hobbies are a big part of that for me, and to me they’re really self-indulgent, so I wanted to reference that a little bit.” When asked how the castle (entitled “Haven”) coheres with the rest of her pieces, she responded that “I really like the idea of associative houses, where it’s only a whole by the things that tie it together. In pop culture reference, that idea is pretty well-represented in Howl’s Moving Castle. It’s kind of similar to the concept of a mind palace, where all those rooms and aspects of yourself are tied together through memory and personal association. I thought that was really poignant for the idea of ‘Sanctum’ because it’s a construct: it’s always going to be personal to you.”
So now it is still the evening of July 29th, but I am walking out of the Bakery in much the same way that a saved man walks out of church: baptized, renewed, and seeing the world with fresh eyes. In other words, sanctuary.
Fever is an Atlanta Art Collective featuring:
@gabeaux @muxworrrthy @hilarykart @thedoublewolf @pressstarttobegin @alashbaugh
Photos by Lindsay Thomaston:
