Alexis Rausch: Rapture | Rupture

Drawing from the visual language of roadside memorials and billboard evangelism, Rapture/Rupture explores the tension between spiritual ecstasy and violence in the search for transcendence.Alexis Rausch’s paintings and installations exist without, as Rausch calls it, “a clear moral hierarchy.” Referencing found photographs of Christian gatherings and dances sourced from across the country, bodies move in and out of focus in a communal effort to find fellowship, unity, euphoria, and grace through movement. Contrastingly, these same gestures can also be interpreted as violent, chaotic, feverish, or dangerous.Through ambiguous duality, Rausch encourages viewers to question their perceptions of religious experience and its artifacts: “How does perceiving the same image as joyous or violent reveal personal bias?”