Ithell Colquhoun (1906–1988) was a British artist, writer, poet and occultist whose work explored sexuality, transformation, nature and the mystical. Trained at the Slade School of Fine Art, she became involved in the Surrealist milieu from the late 1930s and developed a distinctive psycho-morphological practice using automatic and chance-based techniques including decalcomania, frottage, collage and fumage. Her theory of the ‘mantic stain’ proposed that spontaneous marks could bypass conscious control, revealing deeper psychic imagery which could then be developed through conscious intervention. For Colquhoun, these processes were not simply aesthetic but forms of inner exploration and gnosis, informed by her lifelong interest in mythology, magic and esoteric traditions. Her paintings and writings, including The Living Stones (1957) and The Goose of Hermogenes (1961), reflect this synthesis of art, landscape and mysticism. In the 1970s she created an extraordinary abstract Tarot deck based on pure colour and automatic processes, further extending her exploration of symbolism, consciousness and the cosmos.

EXHIBITION: ONE EYE SEES, THE OTHER FEELS