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InspirationIllustration

Elisa Seitzinger's s beguiling deck of Tarot cards, Minor Arcana

Illustrator and artist Elisa Seitzinger is based in Torino, Italy, and recently created a beautiful deck of 40 Minor Arcana tarot cards titled. Their aesthetic marries traditional stylings with a new concern around creating a deck that provides three functions: users can play a card game, for Tarot divination, and finally to create contemporary fairytale narratives, with each card from ace to seven also acting as a specific character.

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Four playing cards from Elisa Seitzinger's Minor Arcana tarot deck, each featuring crowned female figures in traditional dress holding symbolic objects in colourful illustration

On the surface, the black inky lines and rich primary colours fit in perfectly with traditional ideas and tropes, but look a little further and things become rather more transgressive – the women on the cards are proudly holding phallic objects, louchely smoking a cigarette, wielding a bloody sword, legs akimbo in suspenders or with prosthetic limbs.

Seitzinger explains: “Starting from the deck the project comes to life with a series of artworks which visually extend the concept, such as a series of wall tapestries or the gaming table illustrated like a medieval cosmogony in a contemporary way, becoming environment and metaphor of the game of life.”

Elisa Seitzinger's Minor Arcana tarot deck displayed with a red box, showing the ornate joker card and three illustrated cards featuring bold primary colours and inky line work
Two tarot cards from Elisa Seitzinger's Minor Arcana deck displayed upright, showing the Eight of Swords and the Wheel of Fortune with traditional imagery and primary colours
Open notebook displaying two pages of ink illustrations from Elisa Seitzinger's Minor Arcana tarot deck, with detailed engravings of mystical figures and circular symbols
Four cards from Elisa Seitzinger's Minor Arcana tarot deck displayed on a gallery wall, each featuring illustrated figures in black, red, white and gold against dark backgrounds
Close-up of a tarot card featuring a pale-skinned figure with pink hair, red eyes and a cigarette, wearing a white collar with spikes and pink textured clothing against a black background
A black tapestry with a central anatomical figure surrounded by circular red emblems and yellow banner ribbons bearing tarot symbols and text from Elisa Seitzinger's Minor Arcana deck
Skeletal white face with pointed ears surrounded by deep red wings and radiating yellow ribbons bearing Latin text from Elisa Seitzinger's Minor Arcana tarot deck
Circular gaming table with blue wave border featuring Elisa Seitzinger's illustrated Minor Arcana tarot cards arranged around a red central eye, mounted on black tripod legs
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