a graphic artist based in São Paulo, Brazil
Platarô
︎︎︎ Illustration
Platarô is a collective Tarot de Marseille deck made of 78 different cards, each one conceived by a different illustrator. The project is a sequel to Platotipos, which went live on 2018.
The presented card is the Page of Pentacles (Valete de Ouros, in Portuguese), part of the Minor Arcana. It brings, like the Pages of all four suits, a welcome message of new beginnings, drenched in young and powerful, yet inexperienced and chaotic energy. Ruled by the element of earth, Pentacles represents gold, good body and mental health, abundance, potential, will, and how to manifest more of these — in other words, the very best of the matter and the true essence of being. It is an allegory for the philosophers’ stone, a legendary substance capable of not only turning base metals (like lead) into gold, but also useful for rejuvenation and for achieving immortality and eternal youth. In this sense, the card speaks of transmutation: it is possible to convert matter into spirit, and vice-versa. Thus, the Page of Pentacles embodies the dawn of the alchemical work and its two simultaneous processes, the spiritualization of matter and the materialization of spirit.