About the Art

The images of the Illuminated Love Oracle are a collection of Rachel Wolf’s camera-less photography and light-based installations. The creation of this deck was a cyclical process as Rachel’s pieces would inform the conception of a card and other times the image would be crafted to encapsulate the truest essence of a card. 

 

These images draw on a core principle of alchemy. The art of alchemy is the transmutation of matter, a process wherein something is changed from one state to another in order to achieve a higher or more valuable form. Rachel’s work is informed by this alchemical idea of transformation, which she achieves through color and chemical action. She explores how light is expressed  through the use of different elements. This leads to a symphonic play with color, as displayed by the images in the deck.  

 

While the images are photographs, the principle method Rachel used to create them was without a camera. This involves directly exposing photographic materials, paper and film, to light and chemicals. She works with these fundamental elements, which are the invisible tools of analogue photography, in order to produce new, tangible photographic subjects. For Rachel, camera-less photography is a distillation of the essence of the photographic process. Thus, medium and object become one, an idea that challenges common perceptions about the nature and subject of photography.