"Tall Tails Behind"

"Tall Tails Behind" by Marlene Seven Bremner

2025

 oil on panel

12"x16"

“The whole visible universe is but a storehouse of images and signs to which the imagination will give a relative place and value; it is a sort of pasture which the imagination must digest and transform.” —Charles Baudelaire 

"As an automatic painting, it’s hard to say definitively what this painting is about. Nor do I fully want to reveal the extent of its personal meaning to me, as that is complicated and continuing to unfold. What I can share is that it revolves around the theme of a mirage that is being swept away by a force of change, capturing the simultaneous pain and revelation that disillusionment entails. Although the incoming sandstorm holds its own dangers, it is preferred over the illusion that came before. Hence the equine figure is taking the first decisive step in a new direction. 
I’ve also contemplated this figure as the maker of illusions and dreams, with the towering, temple-like crown being the 'Storehouse of Images,' as in the above quote from Charles Baudelaire. In the Storehouse of Images, which the imagination uses as its pasture, live all possibilities and potentials. This creature is the Image-Maker whose imagination digests the symbols and signs of the field and transmutes them into new realities. In this case, the Image-Maker is dissolving one reality as a new one is being born from chaos."

 - Marlene Seven Bremner

Marlene Seven Bremner is a self-taught oil painter, working in a surrealist and allegorical style. Her work explores esoteric themes arising from her study and practice of Hermeticism, alchemy, magic, astrology, and mythology. She is the author of Hermetic Philosophy and Creative Alchemy: The Emerald Tablet, the Corpus Hermeticum, and the Journey Through the Seven Spheres (Inner Traditions, 2022), and The Hermetic Marriage of Art and Alchemy: Imagination, Creativity, and the Great Work (Inner Traditions, 2023).