When Tamara Annis’s sister passed away, at 4:03AM, Annis put her pen down in the hospital room. She had been drawing all night, images that appeared to her above her sister’s bed—she swore she saw black, feathery wings starting to open above her sister. Something at 4:02 moved her to stop drawing, and then her sister was gone. The next day, she found a black feather in her driveway. “I felt like it was from that angel,” she said. This practice of drawing and observing angels is something Annis learned from close confidante Irish artist and writer Victoria Mary Clarke. Long before Annis’s sister’s death, Annis and Clarke had become friends and begun to explore using art to tap into a different observation of reality. Annis is a longtime supporter of street artists and friend of UP, and her interest in street art came partially from how its medium and message helped her heal personal wounds. Her work with Clarke is another unconventional art form that has helped her process her own life.
“This practice of drawing and observing angels is something Tamara Annis learned from close confidante Irish artist and writer Victoria Mary Clarke.”
The angels Clarke channels and Annis observes are not the typical cherubic Christian angels, nor are they literal representations of human souls. They have feminine features and mostly appear in primary colors. “What I work on with my art is helping people connect with themselves,” Clarke said to me over a Zoom call with Annis. Annis picked up a drawing and held it up—Corratrea, the angel of kindness towards the self, which was the first she and Victoria were attracted to. Corratrea is a whimsical, red and green figure with long black hair. When Annis and Clarke did a session together, it was this angel that Annis was most drawn to.
Through working with Clarke, Annis’s art style completely shifted, going from small, abstract drawings to much more realistic portraiture. “I wouldn’t normally ever think of drawing people, but I drew my sister,” she said. “It’s just what came through. Victoria has helped me just be like ‘fuck it, I’m not second-guessing anymore. I do what I want to do.’”
Clarke has been doing this work for years now, but she and Annis had an immediate pull towards each other that has blossomed into a friendship far beyond Clarke’s normal client relationship. Clarke asks people things like: “What would you love in different areas of your life?” And “What do you already love?” Not like, not enjoy, but love. In a modern culture profoundly afraid of the weight the word love carries, these questions are bold and encourage people to step into their own power. And they resonated with Annis.
“What would you love in different areas of your life?” And “What do you already love?” Not like, not enjoy, but love. In a modern culture profoundly afraid of the weight the word love carries, these questions are bold and encourage people to step into their own power. And they resonated with Annis.
Annis turned to Clarke: “It’s so great you kept asking me to draw and channel, since I probably wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t pushed me out of my comfort zone – your saying ‘will you do this’ made me step up. I thought, it’s working, so let’s do more.”
Clarke knows the eye-rolling and woo-woo labeling that comes with saying you channel angels. But entertain me this: Is what Clarke does really any different than how any artist approaches the canvas? Signs, symbols, colors, and images appear from nothing. “Victoria is constantly questioning, too,” Annis said. “She’s not one of these flaky new-age people—she’s not blindly going into it.”
Clarke’s parents were disciples of Osho, so she grew up around a nebulous form of eastern religion with an interest in spirituality. “My dad’s Jewish and my mom is Catholic Irish, too, so I never had interest in Christian angels,” she said. “At one point, I tried to channel some dead celebrities and spirit guides, and I naturally settled on this very loving presence – I was like ‘what are you?’ And they said ‘You can call us angels if you want – we’re just like a loving collective of beings.’ When the pictures started coming, they all had names which didn’t exist in any tradition. I’ve only done only one with a male body, they’re very feminine. It’s a very soft, very nurturing kind of energy.” For Clarke, the angels are a medium, just as paintings or clay are for deeper expressions of the self. “Each angel comes with their own unique name and message,” Clarke explained. “I try to Google them, see if it’s something I’ve just remembered, but it never exists. They dictate their own unique message.”
These include Shailatrea, angel of the physical body, Arranthea, angel of justice, and Gaelitrea, angel of inner guidance. A painting of Arranthea, a cool, pensive face ringed in beige and purple, sat behind Clarke as we spoke. “I started painting in the early 2000s, I was in rehab, so the paintings were quite violent and dark, like a baby stabbing itself, blood everywhere,” she said, punctuating with a laugh at the memory. “I just keep getting a feeling like I really want to paint, but I was like ‘I’m not trained, this is stupid.’” The first angel that came to her was Gaelitrea, which she likes because of the stark, graphic nature of the design. The paintings are simple but hold a comforting energy in their color schemes and facial expressions.
The first angel that came to her was Gaelitrea, which she likes because of the stark, graphic nature of the design. The paintings are simple but hold a comforting energy in their color schemes and facial expressions.
“It’s good for people to know that this doesn’t happen in a straight line,” Clarke said in reference to her own painting practice and what it’s like when she channels the angels. One of the first things she paints when one appears in her mind is the eyebrows, then the rest of the face. “It’s very circular. The first inkling you might have to do something like this might feel like ‘this door’s never gonna close,’ but then a couple weeks later you might find yourself just not doing that. The thing is to not feel like you have to go in a straight line. It always comes back around. It doesn’t have to be rigid, doesn’t have to be scheduled. Eventually your soul will come out, no matter what you do.” For Annis, an artist whose life has had many ups and downs, Clarke’s message resonates due to its consistency and its focus on inner growth. Clarke, too, has lived with a history of tumult, and channeling the angels in her paintings allows her some clarity.
I want to return to an earlier idea—that for skeptics, what Clarke does might seem woo-woo or hokey, but that there is something in her practice for all artists to learn from. There is an intangible element to artmaking, and Clarke engages with it directly. While the average artist might not paint angels, something happens with the brush hits the canvas, or the pen hits the paper. Clarke puts words to a force that’s already there, that she would also be the first to admit isn’t always easy to understand. But what in life is? Clarke’s channeling is her way of making sense of the world’s frightening beauty, and she’s ready to share that with others.
Victoria Mary Clarke’s website is www.victoriamaryclarke.com and she can nbe found on Instagram @victoriamaryclarke
