Automatic Evo-divinations (2016 - present)
These images are all graphite drawings on 4” x 6” paper. The under-images combine digital prints, watercolor, gauche, and charcoal. The images presented here are from 2016-2017 and represent hundreds of drawings which weave in and out of my daily devotional practices and theurgical experiments.
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The Automatic Evo-divinations were initially inspired by the art and writings of surrealist Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988). [Please visit IthellColquhoun.co.uk and the forthcoming book Decad of Intelligence from FULGUR.
Colquhoun employed automatism in her creative processes, often employing diverse materials including collage, fumage, and frottage. My discovery of Colquhoun’s creative process dovetailed with an suddenly-rapidly-expanding study of diverse divination methods including plumbomancy (shapes of molten lead dropped in water), turifumy (shapes in smoke), and various forms of cartomancy (the Tarot being but one).
To formalize a systematic creative practice using these methods, I began a series of daily “Automatic Evo-divinations”; that is, automatic drawings that divined a localized evocation, or calling of a spirit, deity, or entity.
I go through cycles of intense creation, the works shifting as I refocus my attention on communication with specific spirits or align myself towards a specific working. The visual silences when I create none of these build pressure towards the next round. Each drawing -- more an invocation than an evo-divination at this point - is accompanied by short automatic writing (not included in this site).
There are hundreds of these (including two in the collection of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle) and they have been exhibited as grids on gallery walls, but there is a juncture coming when they will be formalized into a book, contextualizing their evolution with the back and forth between spirits and artist-sorcerX.