Understanding the Unconscious
The unconscious is not just hidden, it is active, generative, and alive. According to Jung, this vast realm contains forgotten memories, repressed emotions, symbolic patterns, and archetypal images. It influences how we think, feel, and create, often without us knowing. Artists who work with the unconscious don’t try to control it. They enter into dialogue with it, allowing intuition, dreams, and spontaneous imagery to guide the process. When we tune in to the unconscious, we begin to create with greater depth. Symbols arise. Accidents speak. Something deeper starts to shape the work, and us.
The Union of Opposites
The union of opposites is a central idea in Jungian psychology, and a recurring theme in symbolic and intuitive art. According to Jung, the psyche is structured through dualities: light and shadow, masculine and feminine, conscious and unconscious, order and chaos. Creativity becomes a way of holding and reconciling these tensions. This union doesn’t erase difference: it holds paradox, a symbolic third space where something new can emerge. Jung called this the ‘transcendent function’: the place where contradiction is not solved, but transformed. Artists have long worked from this space, consciously or not, as they try to express what lies beyond binaries. The work becomes a vessel for integration.
The Shadow
In Jungian psychology, the Shadow refers to the parts of ourselves we push out of view; traits, memories, desires, and impulses that conflict with how we want to be seen. But the Shadow isn’t just darkness. It also holds forgotten strengths, untapped instincts, and creative potential. It is everything we are, but don’t yet know. Artists throughout history have turned towards the Shadow to explore fear, vulnerability, anger, and contradiction. Through image and form, these energies can be released, transformed, and integrated.
The Self + Individuation
Carl Jung described individuation as the lifelong process of becoming more fully oneself. It involves integrating the conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche, including the persona, the shadow, the anima + animus, and deeper archetypal forces. Rather than conforming to social expectations or fixed identities, individuation calls us inward, towards wholeness. In art, this process often unfolds intuitively. Artists explore identity not only through self- portraiture but through recurring symbols, emotional landscapes, and imagined worlds. The Self, in Jungian terms, is not the ego but the totality of the psyche. Art allows us to approach it indirectly, creating space for transformation, insight, and integration.
The Persona
In Jungian psychology, the persona is the mask we wear to meet the world: the part of ourselves shaped by social expectations, roles, and appearances. It helps us adapt and function, allowing us to belong, perform, and communicate. But when we become too attached to the persona, we begin to mistake the mask for the self. Creative practice often engages the persona, whether through stylisation, self-presentation, or identity performance. Artists may consciously play with masks, or unconsciously reveal them. In this space, we are invited not only to question what we show but to explore what we hide. The persona is not false, but it is incomplete.
The Four Functions
Carl Jung described the psyche as perceiving and interpreting the world through four core functions: Thinking, Feeling, Sensation, and Intuition. Each function offers a different way of understanding: through logic, emotion, direct experience, or symbolic resonance. Whilst we all use all four, most people favour one or two. In creative practice, becoming aware of these functions helps us tune into overlooked ways of knowing and bring greater wholeness to our work.
The Embodied Image
Jungian art psychotherapist Joy Schaverien describes a vital distinction in creative practice: the difference between diagrammatic and embodied images. A diagrammatic image may be technically skilled or visually striking, but it lacks emotional depth. It is made from the outside in: planned, controlled, or disconnected from the maker’s inner world. An embodied image, by contrast, is formed through direct engagement with feeling, memory, and sensation. It carries psychological presence. This kind of image is not about perfection or performance, it is about truth. It emerges from the body and the unconscious, revealing something previously unspoken. In Jungian terms, the embodied image serves as a bridge between conscious and unconscious experience. It is not created to explain but created to be with what is real.
Seeing with Depth: Goethe, Steiner & the Art of Perception
How do we truly see something, not just with
the eyes, but with the soul? This card draws
on the teachings of Goethe and Rudolf
Steiner, both of whom saw observation as a
spiritual practice.
Equivalents
“Equivalents” are artworks, often
photographs, that mirror emotional or
psychological states. The term was first
used by Alfred Stieglitz in the 1920s,
describing his cloud photographs as visual
expressions of feeling rather than
representations of the sky. For Stieglitz,
these images were not ‘of’ clouds but
‘through’ clouds: emotional landscapes
made visible. Later, Minor White expanded
this concept, viewing photography as a tool
for spiritual reflection. In both approaches,
the subject matter is secondary. What
matters is the internal resonance. The
image becomes an emotional equivalent:
abstract, symbolic, and deeply personal.
Creativity
Creativity is often described as something
beyond mere willpower; it’s a force we
tune into rather than manufacture. Some
artists and thinkers describe it as a
dialogue with the unconscious, a universal
source of inspiration, or even a form of
spiritual receptivity. Rather than forcing
ideas, true creativity emerges when we
listen: whether to intuitive impulses, dream
imagery, or the world around us. Artists
such as Hilma af Klint, Wassily Kandinsky,
and Agnes Martin embraced this
philosophy, treating art-making as an act
of attunement rather than control. Their
work reveals how surrendering to creative
flow can lead to profound and unexpected
discoveries.