Why Green Holds an Ancient Spell
Green is often described as peaceful or natural, but in folklore and esoteric traditions it is far more charged. It is a colour of portals, spirits, boundary realms and unpredictable magic. When I work with green in my botanical or mythical prints, I’m engaging with a symbol that has lived for centuries between blessing and danger. In Slavic lands it was the colour of the forest spirits who could protect or mislead; in Celtic territories it marked the realms of the fae, beautiful but perilous. Green feels like a presence rather than a pigment, a frequency that pulls the viewer into a world where the living and the unseen overlap.
The Forest as a Mythic Body
In Slavic cosmology, the forest was not just landscape but a conscious entity. Spirits like the Leshy were guardians of the trees, shape-shifters who could appear human, animal or moss-covered. Their domain was always green, but never in a gentle sense; it was a green that breathed, curled, warned and sheltered. I draw on this atmosphere when I paint vines that twist like omens or petals that seem to glow under their own moss-soft light. Instead of illustrating folklore, I translate its emotional logic. The greens in my work often carry the humidity of old myths—dense, ritualistic, quietly alive.
Celtic Fae Green: Beauty and Risk
In Celtic mythology, the green of the fae world represented both enchantment and peril. To wear too much green in certain rural regions meant calling the fae’s attention; to enter a circle of unusually bright clover was to risk stepping out of time. This duality fascinates me. Green becomes an invitation and a warning. Soft, luminous greens feel like whispered promises, while deep, saturated greens hold the tension of things half-hidden. In my prints, green is rarely neutral because its cultural memory never was. It vibrates with possibility, a reminder that beauty and risk often share the same origin.
Green as the Colour of Regrowth
Psychologically, green is associated with renewal, but in folklore renewal is rarely gentle. It is the regrowth that follows destruction, the moss reclaiming a fallen tree, the first shoot breaking frozen ground. When I paint glowing seeds or mirrored botanical shapes in emerald tones, I think of this fierce rebirth. Not rebirth as purity, but rebirth as insistence. Green in my work often feels like a pulse returning after silence, or like a future self forming quietly beneath old layers. It carries the sensation of beginning again in a way that feels bodily, intuitive and slightly supernatural.
The Witchcraft of the Botanical World
Plants have always belonged to the realm of witchcraft. In Slavic traditions, certain herbs were harvested at midnight because their power awakened only in darkness. In Celtic regions, plants growing at the borders of fields were believed to absorb liminal magic. When I depict botanical guardians in green—leaves that glow, veins that resemble sigils, petals that open like secret doors—I’m drawing from this lineage of plant myth. My botanicals aren’t meant to be botanically accurate; they behave like spiritual organisms. They observe, protect, reveal and occasionally confront. Green amplifies this presence, making each bloom feel enchanted rather than decorative.
Emerald as Emotional Frequency
Green is emotionally complex. It can soothe or unsettle, nurture or provoke. In some scenes of cinematic horror, green light is used to signal a shift in reality; in medieval painting, green robes marked the ambiguous figures—healers, outsiders, witches. I enjoy using green in ways that tap into this ambiguity. Sometimes it becomes a soft atmospheric glow that calms the composition. Other times it behaves like a supernatural flare, sharpening tension. What interests me is how viewers respond to these shifts. Many feel grounded; others feel watched. That emotional nuance is what makes green such a powerful tool in my practice.
Green as the Colour of the Threshold
In myth, green governs boundaries: the edge of the forest, the entrance to an underworld, the place where a human might cross into a spirit realm. I use green similarly, as a way to build thresholds inside the artwork. Certain strokes act like borders between emotional states, while certain shapes create openings into more intuitive or dreamlike experiences. Green, when paired with shadow or luminous pink hues, feels like the hinge between the known and the uncanny. It isn’t just a colour; it’s a passage.
Botanical Magic in Contemporary Interiors
What fascinates me is how emerald-driven artwork transforms a modern interior. In a minimal space, green becomes the pulse that animates the room. In a maximalist space, it adds a ritualistic calm, grounding the viewer while still hinting at mystery. People often describe my green botanicals as “alive,” and I think that perception comes from the cultural memory embedded in the colour. We recognise green not only as nature but as the shadow of myth within nature. It is both shelter and omen, growth and secrecy.
The Spell of Emerald Witchcraft
Ultimately, green in my artwork is not an aesthetic accent; it is a narrative force. It holds the memory of Slavic forests, the shimmer of Celtic fae realms, the breath of witchcraft, the persistence of regrowth and the emotion of quiet transformation.
Emerald becomes a ritual colour—one that gathers stories, instincts and atmospheres into a single hue. When I paint with this shade, I am not colouring a plant; I am invoking a world.
In this sense, the viewer doesn’t just look at the green. They enter it.
