'It was the most traumatic thing I’ve ever gone through' Sudbury artist works through grief after losing newborn

Sudbury artist exhibit explores losing a child A Sudbury artist's new exhibit at Laurentian University explores the grief after losing a child. Watch the report by CTV's Dana Roberts.

Sudbury — A Sudbury woman is sharing her journey with managing her grief through art after her daughter passed away on the day she was born.

Angelene Humphrey's paintings are on display in an exhibit called "A Geography of Grief-Love" at Laurentian University's McEwen School of Architecture until Jan. 24.

They were created after she gave birth to her first daughter, Satori, in 2014.

Unfortunately, Satori suffered from a health complication following delivery and passed away that same day.

"It was the most traumatic thing I’ve ever gone through in my life and totally unexpected," said Humphrey. "It was the greatest sorrow and the greatest joy that I’ve ever felt at the same time, giving birth to such a beautiful daughter and then having her taken so quickly."

A lifelong artist, Angelene found herself overwhelmed with the loss.

Following the traumatic event, she and husband, Charles, moved from southern Ontario to Sudbury. In her new community, she kept trying to return to her love of painting by attempting to recreate the brief moments she shared with her daughter, Sitori.  However, she found it difficult.

"It was quite natural when this happened that she was going to find a way to express it through art," said Charles. "When this happened, we immediately looked for ways, partly for a survival strategy, to draw positives out of it and give ourselves positive things to focus on."

The Humphreys went on to have two more daughters.

(Angelene Humphrey with her two daughters at her art exhibit. Dana Roberts/CTV Northern Ontario)

Learning to deal with her grief, Angelene found she was able to devote more time to rediscovering her love of painting once her children were in school. She eventually found success in monochrome paintings, which are the focus of her new exhibit.

"I started painting a lot quicker, as I started grabbing moments that I could and I started working very quickly, and very aggressively to allow myself to work through these emotions," said Angelene.

Now, those paintings are on display in her exhibit entitled "A Geography of Grief-Love," on display at Laurentian University’s McEwen School of Architecture.

She likes to think of this exhibit as a dedication to her first-born, Satori.

"This series is really about being able to go through that grief as a process and turning into something stronger and better, almost in honour of her and that life," said Angelene.

Dr. Celeste Pedri-Spade is the curator of the exhibit. As a mother and artist herself, she met Angelene in their neighbourhood and the two quickly became friends. Pedri-Spade is hoping Angelene’s work connects with audiences as much as it did with her, sending the message that grief does not have to be an isolating experience.

"That’s why it’s called A Geography of Grief Towards Love because loss begets grief. But, grief doesn’t replace love, it just teaches us that we have to find a different way of how to love, and be in the world, and relate to people that are there to care for us," said Pedri-Spade.

Angelene is hoping to start a conversation about subjects that many often consider "taboo."

"I think that grief is a bit of a taboo subject that people aren’t comfortable talking about," she says. "I think losing a child and perinatal loss is particularly troublesome for people, but once you start opening up the conversation, you realize that someone knows someone or it happened to them. And there’s a lot of relatability and I think that when we start to relate this way, we realize there’s a much bigger community than we realized and that’s a really great place to start."

The exhibit is funded through the Laurentian University Research Fund.