Colour as the Emotional Engine of Tarot
When I look at contemporary art influenced by tarot, I notice that colour often becomes the true storyteller. Rather than relying on literal symbols—the staff, the cup, the crown—many artists turn to colour as a way to translate the emotional weight of the archetype itself. Tarot has always carried a sensory dimension: each card feels like a weather system, a temperature shift, a light source with its own psychology. Painting through this emotional lens allows colour to speak before imagery does. It becomes the atmospheric core of the archetype.
Red as the Language of Will and Inner Fire
In the visual language of tarot, red is rarely subtle. It marks desire, agency, instinct and the spark that pushes a person into action. Contemporary artists often use red to express the emotional ignition found in cards such as the Magician or Strength. In my own work, red becomes a glowing pulse—an ember held inside a petal or a warm flare beneath a symbolic face. It communicates not aggression, but vitality. Through red, the archetype reveals its momentum, its courage, its invitation to move.
Blue as the Realm of Vision, Silence and Intuition
Blue belongs to tarot’s introspective archetypes: the High Priestess, Temperance, Justice. Contemporary artists often use blue to soften the atmosphere, to create inner quiet. Blue behaves like a breath held in stillness. When I paint with it, the hue wraps around botanical forms or settles into shadow, shaping a contemplative field. It reflects the feeling of listening inward. Blue becomes the stage on which intuition speaks in the language of calm, uninterrupted perception.
Yellow as Illumination and Conscious Breakthrough
Yellow enters tarot imagery as the colour of awareness. The Sun burns through confusion; the Fool leaps in spontaneous clarity; the Magician awakens. Many artists interpret yellow as the energetic shift when insight finally arrives. In my compositions, yellow manifests as dreamlike light—an internal glow behind petals, a radiance that seems to breathe. It marks the transition from uncertainty to understanding. Yellow becomes a moment of recognition, a small dawn inside the artwork.
Green as the Pulse of Healing and Return
Green in tarot embodies restoration and growth. It appears in the archetypes that hold quiet renewal: the Empress, the Star, the gentle rhythms of the Pentacles. Contemporary artists often use green to reconnect the viewer to the physical and emotional body. I rely on green as a grounding aura—moss-like tones around a symbolic portrait, rooted botanicals that steady the entire composition. It carries the feeling of breath returning, of space opening, of the heart adjusting itself back into harmony.
Purple as the Colour of Thresholds and Inner Mysteries
The ethereal purples of tarot point to liminal space—where insight hides behind symbolism, where the Moon blurs perception, where intuition deepens into something spiritual. Contemporary artists embrace purple for its ambiguity and softness. In my work, purple behaves like twilight: a moody glow, a mirrored petal with shifting depth, a face that half dissolves into dream. Purple lets the archetype move beyond clarity into the realm of the subconscious. It is the colour of listening to what is not yet obvious.
Black and White as Ritual Extremes
Black and white frame the symbolic tension of tarot: ending and beginning, the void and the awakening, shadow and revelation. Many artists use these extremes as emotional architecture. I do the same. Black becomes fertile silence—an atmospheric foundation through which every other colour glows more vividly. White becomes breath, expansion, the sudden openness after transformation. Together they shape the ritual arc of the archetype, allowing the artwork to hold the entire cycle from dissolution to emergence.
How Contemporary Artists Expand Tarot Beyond the Page
What I love most about tarot-inspired contemporary art is how fluid the interpretations have become. Instead of rendering the cards literally, artists use colour psychology, emotional abstraction and symbolic atmospheres to distill the essence of the archetypes. A card becomes a feeling. A feeling becomes a palette. A palette becomes a world. In this way, tarot enters the present—not as historical iconography, but as a flexible emotional language.
Why I Continue to Paint Tarot Emotionally
For me, tarot is less a system of symbols and more a constellation of moods. Each archetype offers a different temperature, rhythm and emotional gravity. Painting tarot emotionally allows me to work through colour rather than instruction. I follow the pulse of an archetype until the composition reveals itself: red for awakening, blue for silence, yellow for clarity, green for grounding, purple for liminality. Through this process, tarot becomes contemporary—not a reproduction of the past, but a living emotional field where colour carries the soul of the card.
