The Psychic Frequency of Purple
In tarot, purple is never simply a colour. It is a threshold—a signal that the reading has entered a space between worlds, where logic softens and intuition begins to speak. Purple marks the cards that deal with unseen truths, visionary knowing and the subtle messages that rise from the subconscious. When I paint in this palette, I’m not reaching for decorative richness. I’m reaching for that liminal vibration. My purples behave like intuitive currents, drifting through the composition as though carrying messages from a place slightly beyond waking perception.
Purple as the Atmosphere of Inner Vision
Some tarot archetypes seem to breathe purple. The High Priestess, with her veiled knowledge. The Moon, with its drifting illusions and revelations. Judgment, with its call from a deeper self. These cards share a psychic transparency—an energetic openness that purple symbolises. In my artwork, I echo this atmosphere through dream-coded flowers and hazy gradients that feel like whispers rather than statements. Purple becomes the air of inner vision: not dazzling, but permeating, soft and unmistakably present.
Dream-Coded Flowers as Tarot Messengers
When I paint botanical forms in violet, amethyst or dusk-purple tones, they begin to take on the behaviour of messengers. A bloom might tilt like an ear tuned to another realm. A mirrored petal might reflect not the world outside, but the emotional world inside. A glowing centre might pulse like a spirit-signal. These flowers act as tarot proxies: they reveal what is stirring beneath consciousness. Their shapes feel intentional, as though shaped by the same intuitive forces that guide divination.
Sigils Hidden in Petals and Shadows
Tarot’s psychic purple often appears alongside symbols—curtains, moons, water, thresholds. In my art, I weave similar sigils into the structure of botanicals. A vein becomes a line of divining. A fold becomes a doorway. A shadow becomes a hint of an unseen presence. These shapes aren’t literal occult marks, but they behave like intuitive glyphs. They invite the viewer to read beyond the surface, to sense rather than analyse. Purple enhances this effect, giving the composition the quiet weight of ritual.
Botanical Guardians as Spirit Interpreters
Some of my botanical beings carry a spirit-like quality that emerges most fully in purple tones. Their symmetry becomes uncanny in a comforting way, like an entity that watches over rather than frightens. Their glow behaves like the breath of an unseen guardian. Their roots twist as though tracing messages through invisible soil. Tarot uses purple to mark cards where guides, intuition or ancestral forces are at play. My botanical guardians carry the same symbolism—they serve as intermediaries between the internal and the ineffable.
Purple and the Logic of Liminality
Purple belongs to the in-between. It is neither fire nor water, neither earth nor sky. It lives in transition zones—dusk, intuition, the moment before revelation. In tarot spreads, purple signals that the message is not linear. It arrives in layers, in echoes, in tones. I capture that liminal quality through atmospheric tension: fields that fade into shadow, glows that dissolve at the edge, petals that feel half real and half imagined. This ambiguity is intentional. It mirrors the tarot’s understanding that deeper truths rarely speak in sharp outlines.
Intuition as the Seed of Image
When I work in psychic purples, I lean into instinctive mark-making—gestures that feel guided more than chosen. Tarot readers often describe intuition as something that “rises,” and I experience the same sensation in the studio. A violet highlight appears where an inner signal insists. A soft halo unexpectedly surrounds a seed. A shadow shifts into something more symbolic. The artwork becomes a divinatory process: purple turns the canvas into a receptive field for inner messages.
Why Purple Continues to Shape My Tarot-Inspired Art
Purple holds a rare duality. It is mystical yet grounded, emotional yet lucid, tender yet powerful. It creates a space where intuition can speak without interruption. In my tarot-inspired artworks, purple becomes the colour of access—access to inner sight, inner feeling, inner knowing. Through violet botanicals, spirit-like guardians and intuitive atmospheres, I explore what happens when emotion crosses into vision. Purple marks the threshold. The artwork becomes the portal.
