During the Covid-19 pandemic, increased social distancing and remote work expanded time spent alone, fostering greater awareness of mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. In this context, tarot cards became a vital medium for exploring the inner self, offering a visual language of imagery, symbols, and colors to convey messages and evoke personal interpretations that connect with individual experiences.
This study explores theories of symbolism, tarot, iconography, and illustration, employing Erwin Panofsky’s three-tiered image interpretation method as its framework. A comparative analysis of three tarot decks—the Rider-Waite Tarot, Emoji Tarot, and Inner Child Cards: A Fairy-Tale Tarot—examines their compositions, symbols, and imagery to identify commonalities and develop correspondence keywords as a foundation for creative work.
The theme of this creative project, “The Allegory of Hands,” positions the hand as the central carrier of inner emotions and symbolic meanings, reinterpreting the symbolic language of the Rider-Waite tarot imagery. Much like a second face, the hand’s gestures, postures, and movements serve as a medium to narrate stories, expressing the profound spiritual essence of the tarot. This project will produce a complete tarot deck divided into five series based on organizational structure: The Major Arcana Series: 22 images. The Wands Series: 14 images, focusing on the hand in movement and dance, with orange-red as the standard color. The Cups Series: 14 images, depicting interactions between hands and water, using blue tones as the primary color. The Swords Series: 14 images, exploring the interaction of hands with light and shadow, using yellow, black, gray, and white as the main palette. The Pentacles Series: 14 images, centering on hands in daily life and craftsmanship, with green tones as the standard color. Additionally, a single back design will be created under the theme of “The Allegory of Hands,” synthesizing the visual and symbolic elements of the entire deck. The final artwork will consist of 79 images in total, blending a symbolic perspective with expressive hand movements to convey a symbolic language that bridges tradition and modernity.
The “Allegory of the Hand” exhibition presents creative work through the concept of “storytelling through hands,” transforming static hand gestures into dynamic emotional expressions. Each card serves as a microcosm of a story, with hands as vessels for the soul, narrating life’s journey through symbolic imagery, subtle gestures, and variations in color and light. The goal is to resonate with viewers, connecting to their experiences and offering support, inspiration, and meaning through the hand imagery.