How well acquainted are you with your Jungian shadow?

Here’s a short project I made for fun back in June. I had spent a day watching tutorials on how to make a Crystal Castles-type-beat, and this what came out of my little sonic experiment. Most beats I never give a proper name to, so this was originally saved as “messin around”, but “Black Lion” felt right as it matched the energy of this particular archetype I had in mind.

At the time I was playing with a lot of ideas on how to artistically express the journey of individuation and the whole messy, yet fascinating process of integrating the shadow. Shadow work is not for the weak willed and easily folded. Though I no longer call myself a Jungian (just a fan of his work and how he completely reshaped the world of modern psychology), I realized this year that some folks treat Jung’s work like holy scripture. Something I don’t necessarily agree with, but I still deeply respect the insight Jungian’s share on the internet.

I made this little visualizer to represent the journey of going inwards and descending (or ascending?…) into the subconscious, how we loop back to the same place(s) but with a different perspective. It’s a bit of visual play on the subconscious mind’s way of processing memory. It’s a practice-piece, I enjoy making little video edits that currently live on my phone like cryptids that have not made their way to the internet. This one felt worth sharing.

This year I completed my 3 best paintings of my life so far, but am having trouble accepting they are finished (does anyone else deal with this? it’s terribly annoying and something I still battle with as an artist…) I keep making tiny changes, terrified to overwork them.

And yes, I’m FINALLY developing some rolls of film. Manifesting at least a few good shots in there. Fingers crossed.

(Also, I am well aware that “Black Lion” doesn’t contain a single sliver of Ethan Kath or Alice Glass’s sonic DNA in the slightest, but I hope it’s something you can vibe with anyway!)