Contemporary Artists Are Spellbound by the History of Sex Magic

In Ithell Colquhoun’s “Diagrams of Love,” (ca. 1939–42), nude couples are entangled in intimate poses and drenched in sublime colors. In this series of paintings and drawings, she depicts the human body surrounded by radiant energy fields, inspired by alchemical traditions, kabbalah, and tantric imagery. “Diagrams of Love” sums up the British Surrealist artist’s vision of “sex magic,” a source of inspiration throughout her work.

The term “sex magic” emerged in the early 20th century and was used by artists and theorists to describe sexual connection as a source of magical or spiritual energy. In today’s art world, which continues to be fascinated by the occult, sex magic is having a moment. Colquhoun, who is one of the most well-known artists associated with sex magic, is the subject of a major new show “Between Worlds” at the Tate Britain, through October 19. At the same time, contemporary artists are taking new inspiration from the intersection of magical themes and sexual liberation.

What is sex magic?

“For some, sex magic is about using sexual practices to charge a magical outcome or manifest a particular result,” said Amy Hale, author of Sex Magic: Ithell Colquhoun’s Diagrams of Love, the 2024 book published to coincide with the new Tate exhibition. “For others, it is about communion with the divine through spiritual and intimate physical connection with another person. It’s a set of practices intended to promote spiritual elevation.” Hale noted that Colquhoun’s entire oeuvre demonstrates a belief that “erotic energies can be found in natural forms such as caves, wells, trees, and stones.” The artist’s 1942 painting Tree Anatomy, for example, features vast sweeps of brown and amber paint around a central crevice, which represents both a hollow trunk and, in typical Surrealist symbolism, a vulva.

Sex magic was highly controversial in the early 20th century. “The idea that you might use sexual practices for anything other than procreation is always going to be a challenge for some,” said Hale. “Some of the earliest iterations of sex magic and esoteric sexuality included the importance of ensuring women’s sexual pleasure and satisfaction, which was quite revolutionary at the time.”

Colquhoun’s contemporaries

Numerous creative women were practicing sex magic at the same time as Colquhoun, including some who faced imprisonment for their beliefs. Australian artist and occultist Rosaleen Norton was known in tabloid papers through the 1940s and ’50s as “the witch of Kings Cross.” She was arrested multiple times and had her work burned, though she continued to perform spells that, she claimed, allowed her to access a higher state of consciousness. She also enjoyed polyamorous sexual relationships through tantric rituals. Her paintings featured raucous entanglements of nude bodies and hybrid creatures, conveying a sexual, spiritual force that rejected the strict Christian culture of her upbringing.

In Norton’s undated painting Bacchanal, a young woman with shocking red hair, an ancient crone, and a skeleton dance among a dense group of ghostly pale naked bodies who grab one another’s flesh. They are watched over by a giant demon, referencing Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and ecstasy.

In recent years, there has been growing interest in other radical artists from this period. Marjorie Cameron, an American artist, poet, and occultist who died in 1995, had the first extensive survey of her work in 2014. She felt isolated by her upbringing in a small town, claiming she was captivated by women who were “considered antisocial for some reason or another.” Cameron followed Thelema, a spiritual movement set up by the famous occultist Aleister Crowley, which had a strong influence on her art. She also practiced sex magic. In 1957, her exhibition at Los Angeles’s Feris Gallery was raided by police and closed on obscenity charges. The show included Peyote Vision (1955), an enthrallingly erotic image full of jagged lines inspired by author Aldous Huxley’s spidery illustrations and Cameron’s own sexually charged experience taking the plant-derived drug peyote.

As open expressions of sexuality became more commonplace in the 1960s, more artists began to evoke the divine, magical potential of the female body. For example, Swedish artist Monica Sjöo’s provocative 1968 painting, God Giving Birth, was banned from public view in the 1970s following pressure from Christian groups. The radiant canvas—shown at Sjöo’s 2023 exhibition at Moderna Museet in Stockholm—depicts a nude woman, her face split down the middle by a dark shadow, with a baby’s head emerging from her genitals. The piece conveys an ecstatic female creativity that should be celebrated as natural and divine, yet is so often shamed and suppressed.

Contemporary artists exploring sex magic

Contemporary artists continue to explore the transcendent impact of sex and creativity through the female form. American artist Loie Hollowell’s paintings, for instance, make suggestive references to genitalia and breasts. She has noted the influence of spiritual and mystical traditions, in particular, neo-tantric painting and esoteric pioneers like Hilma af Klint. Hollowell’s pieces bridge the physical experiences of the body such as abortion, birth, and breastfeeding, while also tapping into an intense feminine energy. Pressure in yellow-blue and mars violet (2022), for instance, comprises two simple round forms that meet in the middle, intersecting a vertical painted crease that is suggestive—though not explicitly—of genitalia. “I wanted people to get sucked into the color before they realized what they were actually looking at,” the artist has said of her previous works.

Some of these artists trace their interest in sex magic back to Colquhoun. “I’ve always been really interested in women like Ithell who were completely devoted to their practice,” said Australian artist Emily Hunt, who recently curated a group exhibition, “Dreamlandia,” at London gallery Sim Smith exploring the divine and feminine side of Surrealism. Colquhoun’s 1970 work Oread is included. “That level of devotion and mixture of artist and magician is such a transgressive position,” said Hunt. For Hunt, sex magic is intimately connected to the revelatory experience of creating art, communing with a force greater than oneself. “People are so deeply frightened of the term ‘sex magic,’ thinking it’s just about BDSM and dark, occult things. But at the heart of magic systems are these ecstatic states, which I think also have a lot to do with making art.”