Esoteric Potentiality in Creating and Viewing Angel-themed Photographs

An angel-themed art photograph by Finnish artist Hanne Kiiveri, inspired by a waking dream of her late sister, sparked diverse audience interpretations. Analyzing viewer responses through Egil Asprem's kataphatic (concrete) and apophatic (abstract) modes of thinking reveals that both the artist and audiences draw on popularized tropes from Western esotericism, particularly the kataphatic tradition. This "occultural resourcing" shapes how viewers engage with the juxtaposition of fantasy and reality, the mundane and spiritual. The analysis raises broader questions about photography's capacity to picture the otherworldly and what can be seen through a photograph.

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Abstract

This article explores esoteric potentiality—the perceived possibility of accessing the otherworldly—through a hermeneutic framework that integrates artist intent, the photographic image and audience reception. The Finnish artist Hanne Kiiveri shot her first angel-themed photograph after a waking dream involving her late sister. As part of the Whose Angels? project—an initiative that combines artistic practice with scholarly research—Kiiveri’s staged angel-themed art photographs juxtaposing fantasy and reality, the mundane and the spiritual, were presented to diverse audiences as part of a touring and online exhibition. The verbal responses collected by scholars as research material are here analysed by heuristically employing Egil Asprem’s (2016) distinction between kataphatic (concrete, affirmative) and apophatic (abstract, ineffable) modes of thinking to illustrate different strategies of engaging with the artwork. It will be argued that although Kiiveri’s artistic practice is not explicitly “hermetic” or “mediumistic”, she draws on popularised tropes and vernacularised themes derived especially from the kataphatic tradition of Western esotericism. This type of “occultural resourcing” is evident in the audience commentary as well. The analysis also raises broader onto--epistemic questions regarding photography and the photographic image: what can be pictured by photographing, and what can be seen through a photograph?