Tarot card illustration for a limited edition card deck.

Here is my illustration of ‘The Hierophant’ included in a limited-edition tarot card deck of the Major Arcana. The other cards are each illustrated by a fellow Bristol-based illustrator and were featured in a well-received exhibition at Centrespace Gallery in 2025.

The name Hierophant immediately made me think of elephant so I had to transform the central figure into a mask wearing character. Whispering into the elephants ears are two Greek women merging out of Greek columns.

And, where there are typically two bowing monks at the bottom of the card, I replaced with two monk-eys.

In Greek lore, there are a mischievous pair called Cercopes, described as more monkey than man. Zeus changed cercopes into monkeys. Centuries later zoologists were inspired to name the genus of monkeys in Minoan frescoes as “Cercopithecus”. The painted frescos depict the monkeys in high heels and elongated limbs.