Sacred Thing, the roving gallery that works with the most exciting emerging artists to produce exhibitions and affordable limited edition artworks, is thrilled to announce its latest collaboration, an exhibition by artist collective Tump which will open in Stroud on April 25th.
Tump, a newly-formed collective of artists based in Stroud, will hold their debut exhibition in a former restaurant in London Road.
The three artists, Alex Merry, Flora Wallace and Milligan Beaumont, who are all established creatives in their own right, have come together as Tump for this exhibition because of their shared interest in the spiritual experience of the local landscape and its ancient history.
The exhibition, entitled Bat, Moon, Womb, takes as its starting point Hetty Pegler’s Tump, a well-preserved example of a Neolithic chambered burial mound in Uley, near Stroud. The artists have spent time inside the long barrow, creating automatic drawings and writings (a technique developed by the Surrealists in the 1920s as a way of tapping into the artists’ repressed psyche), assimilating its internal environment and carrying out a sensory archaeology through a combination of intuition, soil samples and field recordings. It is accepted that the tump was used as a place for burial, but we will never know the full extent of its significance. It is this place of unknowing that Tump have found to be fertile with inspiration, imagining histories and reconsidering their own connections to life, death and the land.
Over yonder
Over mound and moon
Lead me to death
Where I am born
– Automatic writing by Milligan Beaumont
The outcome is an expansive multi-media exhibition that probes and reimagines how the tump may have been used, not only by those who constructed it more than 5,000 years ago but also by other human and non-human beings in the many succeeding years.
The exhibition will transform the former restaurant into a womb-like chamber which will house artworks made inside the tump, along with relics, grave goods, artefacts, sculptures, paintings, textiles, audio pieces, video and ceremonial performances that have been made in response to the artists’ experience and understanding of Hetty Pegler’s Tump. There will be two evening performances which will include a live performance by musician Cosmo Sheldrake among other collaborators.
The title of the exhibition is taken from an observation made during the artists’ first visit to the tump that felt significant as a triad of interconnected symbols, the bat, the moon and the womb. Upon entering the tump, the artists were met with a sleeping bat, a creature that in many cultures is seen as a messenger from the spirit world for its ability to sense what it can’t see.
In shamanism it is symbolic of death and life, endings and beginnings. The moon is widely recognised as a symbol of femininity and the embodiment of life cycles. It is intrinsically and mysteriously connected to the female reproductive system and there is even evidence to suggest that the number of births occurring during a full moon is greater than other phases of the lunar cycle. In mythological lore, long barrows hold a special significance as gateways to the domain of the goddess, their entrances are interpreted as symbolic representations of the goddess’s vagina, with the interior likened to her womb.
INFORMATION
25th – 28th April 2024
Performances on Thursday 25th and Sunday 28th at 6.30pm
Private view on Thursday 25th April 7 – 9pm
The Old Music Centre
49 London Road
Stroud, GL5 2AD
Refreshments generously provided by Deya Brewing Company and Living Things.
Tump (formed in 2024) is an ongoing collaboration between artists Alex Merry, Flora Wallace and Milligan Beaumont, as a means of connection with the local landscape and of playful inquiry into the ancient and enigmatic megaliths of Gloucestershire and the South West. Bat, Moon, Womb is the first in a series of exhibitions and happenings to be organised by the group.
Alex Merry is an illustrator, portrait painter & folk artist based in Stroud, Gloucestershire. Her work ranges from intricately painted pet portraits to large scale folk creatures & masks. As a founding member of Boss Morris, she breathes new life into ancient customs, reinvents rituals and has carved a unique niche for herself in the world of morris dancing. Her art conjures dream-like worlds of fantasy and magic, drawing from her deep connection to folk traditions & family creativity. Alex has worked for clients including Gucci, Shirley Collins, Bridget Christie, Sam Lee and with Boss Morris she has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, Glastonbury Festival and the Brit Awards.
Flora Wallace is a ceramic artist, ink maker and illustrator based in Stroud. Much of her work is inspired by observing natural forms and the behaviour of plants, animals and fungi. She creates a variety of ceramics using porcelain, Raku and clays that she has gathered from the regions around her home in Gloucestershire. She experiments with the materialities of places through her work by transforming seasons and moments in time into inks, pigments and glazes. She also uses automatic drawing, writing and dream analysis to explore the relationship between the subconscious and creativity. Flora regularly collaborates with musician Cosmo Sheldrake and together they make music as Don’t.
Milligan Beaumont is a multidisciplinary artist, designer and stylist. Having studied fashion at Central Saint Martins she is now based in Stroud. Her work is inspired by ancient cultures, historical periods and a love of tiny creatures. Working across a broad variety of mediums, from hand embroidery to sculpture, she tells stories of imagined characters and personal experience. Milligan has become known for her maximalist and highly embellished style that permeates each medium she turns her hand to. Milligan’s work has been worn by the likes of Grayson Perry, Helena Bonham Carter and Lulu Guinness. Her entire graduate exhibition was acquired by Christina Aguilera and worn throughout her 2019 stadium tour. Milligan’s work is exhibited in Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk, the blockbuster touring exhibition that launched in 2020 at London’s V&A Museum and continues to tour to museums around the world.
Sacred Thing is an art gallery and publisher of affordable limited edition sculptures, founded in 2019 by curators Barnie Page and Holly Featherstone. Sacred Thing came about from a mutual love of mantelpieces and sentimentality for the objects we choose to place on them. We work closely with artists to facilitate the production of exciting artworks and to create an in-road for art lovers to collect domestic scale sculptures by world-class artists.
