Where My Serpent Symbolism Begins
The presence of serpents in my art has never been about literal imagery. It has always been about movement — that deep, internal shift that feels like shedding something old to make room for something new. When I draw or paint serpentine forms, I’m not thinking of reptiles; I’m thinking of cycles. I’m thinking of the slow rhythm of transformation that happens within the psyche. Serpents have followed me intuitively throughout my practice because they hold a kind of emotional truth: change is rarely clean or linear. It coils, it contracts, it pulses. It asks for patience. And in my symbolic universe, that process feels profoundly alive.
The Serpent as a Tarot Archetype of Death and Renewal
Tarot has shaped my understanding of serpents more than any other symbolic system. In tarot, transformation is not dramatic destruction; it is an inner shift, a reorientation of truth. When I think about Death in tarot, I don’t imagine an ending. I imagine a coiling movement, a quiet invitation to release what has become too heavy. The serpent, in this context, becomes a guide. Its curve echoes the circular nature of renewal. Its pattern mirrors the rhythm of emotional cycles. When I incorporate serpents into my compositions, I’m drawing on that archetype — the shedding, the awakening, the rebirth that tarot expresses not through fear but through clarity.
Cycles of Shedding as Emotional Practice
My serpent motifs often emerge during periods when I feel myself shifting internally. The process is not always comfortable. Emotional shedding requires honesty; it requires letting go of versions of myself that have already served their purpose. In the serpentine shapes I create — soft, elongated, intertwined — I find a visual metaphor for this process. A serpent does not force transformation; it grows into it. The shedding happens because the old skin becomes too tight for the new self. When I build serpent-like curves in my artwork, I am giving form to this sense of outgrowing, of expanding past what is familiar.
The Curved Line as Transformation
Serpent shapes in my work often bypass literal representation. They appear as lines that bend, twist or coil through the composition. These curves behave like emotional trajectories — never straight, never predictable, but always purposeful. A curve can hold tension. A loop can hold memory. A spiral can hold truth. When I use these forms, I’m creating a symbolic language for inner movement. They carry the pulse of change more clearly than any figurative depiction could. In this sense, my serpents are not creatures; they are pathways.
Botanical Serpents and Organic Rebirth
In many of my pieces, serpents blend into botanical motifs — vines curling like ancient serpentine symbols, stems bending with quiet intention, petals unfurling in shapes that mimic coiling bodies. This merging of flora and serpent is deliberate. Plants and serpents share an intuitive connection: both transform from within, both grow through cycles, entrambi si piegano e si rialzano. A vine winding around a shape can feel as transformative as a serpent shedding its skin. A root expanding underground behaves like a silent initiation. Through these botanical-serpentine hybrids, I explore rebirth as something natural, grounded, and inherently organic.
Light as the Catalyst of Transformation
In my serpent imagery, light becomes the catalyst that reveals what is changing. A glowing line along the curve suggests a truth becoming visible. A neon highlight around a serpentine loop marks a moment of clarity. A soft inner radiance at the centre of a spiral hints at an emotional awakening. I often use light not to illuminate the serpent itself, but to illuminate what the serpent represents — the inner shift, the quiet breakthrough, the part of the self that is emerging from shadow into visibility. Light, in this context, becomes the second half of transformation. The serpent moves; the glow reveals.
Shadow as the Ground of Renewal
Transformation does not begin in brightness. It begins in darkness — in the quiet, private space where emotions gather before they make sense. My soft-black atmospheres give the serpentine forms a place to rest, to coil, to prepare. Shadow protects the process. It gives the curve its depth. It makes the glow meaningful. When I create serpent imagery, I rely heavily on darkness not as void, but as soil: the hidden ground where the next version of the self roots itself before rising.
Serpents as Emotional Protectors
I often feel that the serpents in my art act as guardians. They are not threatening; they are watchful. Their movement is steady, attentive, intuitive. They do not strike — they circle. They hold space for transformation, as though marking the perimeter of a sacred inner process. In compositions where the serpent surrounds an eye, a seed or a botanical bloom, it behaves like a protective boundary. It says: this shift is delicate. This emergence is sacred. Let nothing disturb it.
Why Serpents Remain Essential to My Practice
I return to serpents because they mirror how I experience emotional evolution: quietly, cyclically, with a mixture of softness and intensity. They allow me to visualise change not as rupture but as unfolding. They give shape to the invisible process of renewal that happens beneath the surface of consciousness. Through serpentine lines, shadows, glows and botanical echoes, I can express transformation without naming it — letting the viewer feel it rather than decipher it.
In my symbolic world, serpents are not symbols of danger. They are symbols of becoming. They carry the wisdom that every ending is a beginning, every shedding is a preparation, every cycle is a return to the self — deeper, clearer, and more luminous than before.
