Art and Devotion - Interview with Italian artist and CoH devotee Annalisa Corato

Her Sacred Fire, painting by Annalisa Corato - All Rights Reserved

Art and Magic are intimately connected. Both use a symbolic language that, rooted in an ancient tradition, reflects the human soul across the centuries, speaking at the same time to the unconscious and to intuition, to what ancient philosophers called nous. Art and Magic transmute raw matter into creative power, connecting the material world with the divine one. They lift us beyond our horizon, guiding us toward an elsewhere made of myth, devotion, and enchantment.

For this reason, I believe it is extremely important, today more than ever, to give value to artists who are still capable of conveying divine messages through the work of their hands. In a world in which the symbol has become a mere empty container for superficial aesthetics, and in which AI offers us, day after day, images that are somehow distorted, it is wonderful to witness how the human mind and hand are still able to receive divine inspiration and translate it into a language we can understand.

Today I want to tell you about Annalisa, a 39-year-old artist from Puteoli (Campi Flegrei), a member of the CoH, who painted the splendid image of Hekate and Her Sacred Fires, as well as the images you see below.

1. What is your artistic and educational background?

Annalisa: I have been drawing for as long as I can remember. I graduated from an Art High School, but many techniques I learned “along the way,” through constant practice and direct experimentation. I consider myself self-taught, because my artistic path is not academic; it has grown together with me.

2. How does Hekate influence your creative process? Is your art born more from inner/divine inspiration or from personal interpretation of symbols and visions?

Annalisa: The Goddess Hekate was my first source of inspiration. I would like to specify that all the works I have created belong to my personal devotion: imprinting an image on canvas, as if taking an instant photograph, is for me a way of giving life to an act that does not belong solely to the spiritual sphere but merges and coexists with everyday life. My art mainly arises as a personal interpretation of symbols and visions received both in meditation/vision and as divine inspiration. It is a continuous dialogue between what I receive and what I manage to translate.

4. When you work on sacred subjects, what is your creative process?

Annalisa: I can’t say that the process is always the same, but it is as if I see in my mind what I need to imprint on canvas, paper, wood, or any other material or support. I am very instinctive in this, and in most cases I remain faithful to the image/vision that I perceive and receive in that moment.

5. For the painting dedicated to the Ritual of the Sacred Fires, how did you integrate the elements of the Ritual into the composition?

Annalisa: The image dedicated to the Ritual of the Sacred Fires had been “given” to me long before I knew of the existence of that specific ceremony dedicated to Her. I kept repeatedly seeing this image of Hekate with “torches in both hands” in relation to the epithets Dadophoros and Phosphoros. But what left me most astonished, amazed, struck— I can’t find an adjective that truly explains the emotion I felt—was Her gaze: that face emerging from the fire itself, as if that very fire were an extension of Her energy, strength, and essence.

6. Are there specific symbols of the Ritual that you consciously chose to represent? Why those?

Annalisa: The central element I consciously chose was fire. That is the symbol I selected.

7. What atmosphere or message did you want to convey by linking the Ritual to the image?

Annalisa: I should preface this by saying that I too often hear (and read) “descriptions” of the Goddess that refer exclusively to Her terrible, dark aspect, or that emphasize only Her relationship with witches. My intention was therefore to offer a broader vision of what the Goddess Hekate might be, according to my point of view. I confess that I drew much inspiration from the Chaldean Oracles, in which Hekate’s role is quite different. I wanted to convey Her luminous, cosmic, and mediating dimension, not reducible to a single archetype.

8. What emotions accompanied you during the creation of the painting?

Annalisa: For me, art is communication. It is a form of communication that does not pass through words. Often the emotion we feel when looking at an image goes beyond language - we cannot verbalize it, and descriptions are never exhaustive. The same applies to the emotion of the creative act. While I was painting, during the creation of this image, the dominant emotion was Strength. But not physical strength, and not only creative strength. It was a spiritual, illuminating, life-giving strength: a fire that does not destroy but creates. A fire that becomes a beacon, like the midday sun or - as I like to call it - “the nocturnal sun,” and here I do not refer to night as a temporal aspect, but as a principle.

9. When you work on spiritual or religious works, do you follow preparatory gestures or personal rituals?

Annalisa: No, I do not follow preparatory rituals. On the contrary, when an image arrives, my impulse is to capture it, observe its details, and transfer it onto the support as soon as possible. The creative gesture itself is already charged with sacredness.

10. Do you consider these works as rituals/magical acts in themselves, or do they remain primarily artistic expressions for you?

Annalisa: Once a dear friend of mine told me: “Receiving one of your paintings is like receiving an energetic activation, because of how much energy you manage to imprint in them.” I took those words as a compliment, and since then I have also created paintings for others, trying to imprint and blend not only colors but also energy and symbols. That said, I consider them both: ritual acts and works of art.

If you are interested in Annalisa's Art and Works, follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61584962695762

The Moirai - paintings by Annalisa Corato - All Rights Reserved