Why Subconscious Symbols Feel Immediately Familiar
Certain images feel familiar even when they’re strange. A mirrored petal, a doubled stem, a face with a quiet glow — these elements often resonate before we understand why. In my work, this sense of recognition is intentional. I use surreal flora and symbolic portraiture to reach the subconscious rather than the rational mind, creating forms that echo emotional experiences rather than literal reality. This is why viewers often recognise themselves in the artwork. The symbols appeal to the internal patterns we all carry, the ones we feel long before we name.
Mirrored Botanicals as Reflections of Internal Patterns
Botanical mirroring is one of the clearest examples of subconscious patterning in my art. When I reflect petals, stems or floral shapes across a vertical axis, the resulting form feels both natural and uncanny. This duality mirrors the structure of the subconscious itself — familiar, but distorted; symmetrical, but unpredictable. These mirrored botanicals can represent emotional repetition, cycles, or parts of the self facing each other. They behave like metaphors for reflection and integration, expressing inner dynamics that words struggle to capture.
Surreal Faces as Carriers of Emotional Truth
The faces in my portraits are not designed for likeness but for resonance. Their neutrality, soft distortion, and chromatic gradients make them feel like emotional mirrors rather than literal individuals. Because the expressions remain still, the viewer is not guided toward a single interpretation. Instead, the portrait opens space for inner recognition. The surreal elements — luminous eyes, translucent skin, or subtle elongation — hint at states beneath the surface, encouraging a subconscious reading. The face becomes a container for emotion rather than identity.
Colour as a Language the Subconscious Understands
The subconscious responds to colour before form. This is why my palette plays such a central role in the symbolic structure of the work. Hot pink feels like heat and openness. Lavender reflects intuition and softness. Teal anchors the emotional atmosphere. Acid green brings an electric pulse of aliveness. These colours do not describe emotion; they evoke it. When viewers recognise themselves in a colour shift or a glowing edge, it’s often because the hue matches something they’ve felt internally — a sensation rather than a narrative.
Soft Distortions That Echo Inner Experience
Slight distortions in shape or proportion can mirror how emotion alters perception. A flower that bends too sharply, a face elongated by light, or an eye that glows from within suggests a psychological truth rather than a physical one. These distortions are not meant to be unsettling, but honest. They express how internal states reshape the world around us. Viewers recognise these distortions because they echo moments of introspection, tension or transformation — times when reality feels softened around the edges.
Emotional Atmosphere as Subconscious Landscape
The atmosphere surrounding my figures — haze, glow, shadow, softness — functions like the subconscious environment we all carry. This atmospheric quality creates a sense of inner space rather than external setting. The artwork becomes a landscape of emotional states: dense, diffused, illuminated, or unsettled. This is why viewers often describe a feeling of “seeing themselves” in a composition. The emotional landscape mirrors internal weather, something we instinctively understand even when we cannot articulate it.
Why Surreal Flora Feels Personal Rather Than Abstract
Flowers are powerful symbolic vessels because they carry cultural, emotional and psychological associations. When I alter them — mirroring petals, adding neon cores, stretching shapes into near-human forms — the botanicals start to feel like emotional stand-ins. They can represent vulnerability, growth, desire, tension, or healing. Their surreal qualities make them symbolic rather than decorative. Viewers recognise themselves in these florals not because they look familiar, but because they feel familiar.
Subconscious Recognition as Connection
When art touches the subconscious, it bypasses explanation. The viewer responds instinctively — with a feeling, a memory, a sense of closeness. This is the foundation of connection in my work. Subconscious symbolism allows the artwork to communicate quietly, offering recognition without instruction. Surreal flora and faces become emotional mirrors, reflecting internal truths through soft distortion, colour logic and symbolic form.
In this quiet, intuitive space, recognition becomes a form of communion. We see our inner patterns reflected back at us — and the artwork becomes a place where our subconscious finally feels understood.
