THE ALCHEMIST

PHOTO TIM WALKER

ARTIST ZOE BEDEAUX

T.I.P. (The Invisible Prophetess, Poetess, Protest) aka Zoe Bedeaux’s art

—spanning sculpture, performance, writing, and Cosmotics—bridges seen and unseen realms, blurring lines between sacred and profane. Through text, sound, and voice, she explores “Cuntsciousness,” focusing on the Primordial Mother’s myriad of forms. Bedeaux is a witch poet sybil, a Shemanic practitioner, and a Shaktivist. A polymath working inter-dimensionally, she straddles the corporeal and spiritual realms, bringing the esoteric into the exoteric. As both sybil and scribe, Her pen is her sword, cutting through conventional narratives to expose hidden truths. Her work reimagines social and cultural paradigms, applying ancient wisdom to contemporary issues. In conversation with filmmaker Lisa Rovner from her enchanted London home, she invites us to question norms and envision alternatives.

LR: Zoe, take us back, where did you grow up and when did you first begin collecting objects?

ZB: I’ve been a rock hound since I was eight years old. I still am. As a kid, I wanted to be an archaeologist; I was always digging. I grew up in Hertfordshire, in a place that had a very particular stone formation that is called puddingstone. I collected stones and fossils. Stones are the first medicine. That’s why I was attracted to them. They hold so much knowledge; they have literally seen it all! They were my first friends, they spoke to me. After that, I went on to collecting fifties ceramics, glass, books, clothes, jewellery and textiles. We didn’t have money, we just used to go and find stuff in markets and charity shops. For me, it’s always been about the hunt... When I’m really searching for something rare, I get messages of where to find them. For instance, I’ve always wanted one of these huge ecclesiastical chandeliers and I’ve never seen one under 5 grand. And then one night I remember just lying down and getting a message saying, “Go on the internet now. The chandelier is there. I go on, and the chandelier is there! For 250 quid! Now I’ve got this relationship with this dealer that transcends time and space, I often call him and say, ‘I’m looking for this very specific thing.’ He goes, ‘Yep, I’ve got it.’ My daughter calls him my man of needful things, after the Stephen King novel ‘Needful Things.’ We’ve got this kind of dance going... These days, I’m finding mostly Shamanic Tibetan pieces. I told him the other day, ‘I feel like I’m just collating all my objects. I feel like the lama who has died, reincarnated, and been brought to sit with their objects from another time to identify them.’ I practice psychometry, and when I tune into these things, it’s like I know these objects intimately.

LR: What does that mean? Psychometry?

ZB: Psychometry (Paranormal) is the ability to take a clairvoyant reading from things through touch. Everything emits a frequency. Even that which we think of as inanimate, is vibrating and energetically alive with its own frequency and energy.

LR: Your collecting and art practice seem inextricably linked. In what ways does your collection inspire or inform your process? How do objects breathe life into your creative process? Are objects props in your narrative, or do they possess their own tales that you’re merely channelling?

ZB: It’s interesting, I was working on a piece in response to the 1484 Papal bull “Summis desiderantes affectibus” (Desiring with Supreme Ardor) issued by Pope Innocent VIII which authorisedformal inquisition against witches and gave Heinrich Kramer the authority to write the Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches). It’s a palimpsest print on which I had screen printed a new decree onto an old copy of the Malleus. The Malleus classified sorcery as heresy, which was a crime and anyone practicing any beliefs they felt opposed Christianity were persecuted. The Malleus recommended that secular courts try individuals under this treatise.

LR: Pure male paranoia.

ZB: To some extent male paranoia, but it’s a bit more complex than that as there were women condemning women too; this wasn’t just the malice of men at work, but they definitely led the way. The Mammal Bull I created is a cosmic decree straight from the Mother Tongue, counteringthe man-made Papal Bull that brought such fear and destruction.The title “Ea Occidi Non Potest” translates to “She Who Cannot Be Slain,” symbolising the enduring spirit of those targeted by the witch hunts.

When I found the meat hook, I knew it would be used in a piece at some point, but it wasn’t untilI placed the print on the floor and saw how it sat exactly inside the meat hook that I realised howI would use it. The meat hook represented exactly what I was saying in the piece, which was: these people were sacrificed. Everyone understands what a meat hook is. We hang meat from it. We don’t hang people from it. But this is exactly what happened. People were hanged, burned, all kinds of brutality was waged against these so-called witches to get confessions. Let’s not forget there were men being hunted too, but it was predominantly women who were condemned. I wanted to address the shattered psyche within humanity that still reverberates centuries later by honouring those who were once persecuted. When you ask me what Witch means to me, Witch symbolises our direct communion with the source, the Mother, and that’s what I work with. Nature is what informs and feeds my work. All the beauty we have been gifted with is vanishing before our eyes. It needs to be reclaimed and honoured; it’s our Goddess-given right, it’s all we really have, and those wise folk of old were trying to preserve exactly that. Everything else is just an illusion.

LR: Alejandro Jodorowsky posits a transformative role for the contemporary artist, stating:“Art can no longer be that will for total catastrophe which it was able to be in the past.The catastrophe has well and truly happened. The artist must become a therapist, healer of the world. Otherwise art is emptied of meaning and serves no purpose at all.” You’ve created Cosmotics which you describe as “Metaphysical tools” and Alchemical agents.” What was the idea behind this and how does it align with and enhance your broader artistic practice?

ZB: Cosmotics are intrinsically linked to my artistic practice, which embodies Art Magic and Medicine. Witchcrafted by Vida was conceived under the protection and guidance of spirit. This ancient knowledge is still used in certain parts of the world.

Cosmotics are metaphysical tools, vibrational medicine from the Cosmos.They are the antithesis of cosmetics. Cosmetics are a superficial barrier. Cosmotics go beyond the surface, penetrating the etheric bodies, transforming gross matter... They are alchemical agents, supernatural energetic tools. Their function is transformation, protection, healing, and ascension. They are divined for those who want to transform, ascend and access their true highness. These tools are divined for YOU to work with . YOU are the magician and the medicine. I call this YOUDOO. It’s in your hands and up to you.

LR: There’s an intriguing duality to you—a soft exterior hiding a razor-sharp wit and social commentary. Your work often peels back societal layers, exposing uncomfortable truths. Do you think of yourself as a political artist?

ZB: The work is political; whether I’m a political artist is another story. Who is applying the label? I’m not. I’m just delivering things that are important to me.And I wonder if they’re important to anyone else. I care about people being awake,I’m not interested in the woke because I think that’s broke and that carries its own agendas. I’m interested in actively looking at the world from many different perspectives.

I think there is a dark undercurrent running through a lot of the culture that surrounds us, and people are being steered to look outside rather than inside by design. Society is being drivenby Celebrity Culture which is problematic, when you have Sellebrities leading the way whose relationship with the bigger picture is so poor, they allow themselves be co opted by companies who are blatantly causing a lot of problems and damage on this Earth and getting away with it.

Endorsed by Sellebrities who are prepared sell their souls with out any shame. - knowing that the Youth out there are aspiring to do as they do. That tells you exactly where we are at as a society. We literally need a bonfire of the vanities.

My interest is: are people waking up? Are they aware of the hypocrisies that govern our world, and what are they prepared to do about it? A lot of my work is about what I’m observing - the absurdity of what I’m seeing. When I look at the world, I’m in a Kafka novel. I always say this is beyond Kafka. The level of insanity on this plane, begs belief. There’s only one race of importance barring the human race, and that is the race against time. Either we become one or we become none. It’s that simple.

Sometimes I look around and think “Ignorance really is bliss.”But I am a thinker. I’m not one to just do as I’m told. I’m not buying what the status quo is selling. I’ve always been out there questioning, dismantling, digging, excavating.

LR: What can you tell us about your upcoming show?

ZB: The exhibition is called the Public Alchemy No1 - The Antifreeze. It’s inspired by a stanza from ‘In Memory of W.B. Yeats’ by W.H. Auden:

Intellectual disgrace

Stared from every human face

And the seas of pity lie

Locked and frozen in each eye.

I’ve been musing on the antidote, the antifreeze to unlock the frozen human conditions of ignorance, self-loathing and greed. The exhibition is in two parts, housed in an old car wash and beauty parlour next door to each other. It’s a collaboration with Buildhollywood, who have billboards around London and work with artists through “Your Space or Mine” to create work. My artworks will be fly posters in the streets and billboards surrounding the exhibition space.

The first part of the show is a sound installation in the old beauty parlour called “Nothing To See Hear - The Ultraviolet Catastrophe,” an audio poesis where Andromeda The Aethiop - The Invisible Woman transmits her story.

We then move to the car wash, where visitors step into a light energy-clearing ritual. Everyone will anoint themselves with Love Dust and drop a Snapdragon Love Bomb Witchcrafted by Vida before entering the space. Preparing them for Watawat - Where Art Thou Art Where Art Thou:“The True Herstory of Art.” Here, the Afrodeity Art transmits herstory through a sonic transmission, which is an invitation to meditate on ideas and paradigms that desperately need our attention. Daring everyone to question the state of art through the story of the Goddess Art.

When someone asks me, “What’s that worth? I say, “It depends whose hands it’s in.” A car boot find for three quid can become a Leonardo da Vinci worth millions. What’s it really worth? Three quid in one hand, millions in another because someone “with authority” said it’s worth that? Even though there may be people who question its provenance and authenticity, it is still sold regardless.

Can art really be held in such esteem that it exceeds the value of life itself?

That’s what Watawat is addressing, the imitation of art through her eyes. It’s all about the money, the worship of Mammon. Art becomes the byproduct, and the deification and exaltation of art and artists who are deemed commercially successful, obscene!

Capitalism is devouring the soul of everything.

These insane arbitrary prices make absolutely no sense in a world that is disintegrating rapidly. Art is for everybody. It has no real value outside of what it gives you.

The invite for my show reads: “Satan returns to hijack the art world. Whoever controls the arts controls the people.” Art is a powerful tool, and what I’m talking about is the weaponization of art. The arts represent your imagination - your Goddess-given right to embrace your autonomy,your truth. If that is being captured and diverted with bullshit to the point that people can no longer think critically for themselves, then we just become a society of slaves.

I see my art as Textual Healing. I take complex ideas and simplify them through storytelling. I’m interested in telling stories that will ignite and empower people.Stories that will help them understand: “I am another one just another one of yourself.”