HIGHER ART - Serving the human need ...

'Higher art' seeks to communicate deep meaning through a visual art medium, so as to foster inner contemplation.
It attempts to "portray a quality, a value, or a principle, ​that resonates with the highest 'interior' aspects ​of human existence" (Kim S. MacKenzie 2024).

For the Practitioner
As a creative practice, higher art promotes an inward orientation that facilitates inner self discovery and personal empowerment for the artist. For those who are 'called', higher art has the power to serve as a practical yet sacred tool for cultivating spiritual sensitivity and awareness. In this sense the pursuit of higher art can serve as a spiritual path in its own right, for it provides a creative conduit for encountering and fortifying one's own personal faith and philosophical/theological convictions. Harnessing this process provides an opportunity to interpret and communicate 'divine impulse' in an original creative manner, thereby serving human evolution through a visual art medium.

Therefore - "The higher artist accepts a grand responsibility. They must dedicate their talent to creating a “spiritual atmosphere” through creative means. This requires the development of concentration and the ability to focus intently.  It involves acute sensitivity, and the ability to tune in and perceive subtle forces accessible from within, and the courage to interpret these powers with duty and responsibility." (From book COLOUR CONSCIOUSNESS A Practitioner's Guide to HIGHER ART)

For the viewer
Higher art has the potential to enrich the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual heart of art enthusiasts. This is because it explores deep, universal themes of existence and transcendence that can resonate with the core of our being. It provides a way to explore and express spiritual ideas that may be difficult to articulate in words alone, that seek to foster a sense of broader belonging in a  purposeful cosmos.

​Higher art can also challenge the mind, for it often presents complex ideas, symbolic representations, and thought provoking concepts that require deep presence, imagination and contemplation. Engaging with these works can expand our perspectives beyond the limited material lens, encourage us to consider the world in new and enriched ways, and lift us out of the ordinary and into the realm of possibility. Higher art can therefore, if allowed to be, a source of mystical inspiration and consciousness expansion, reminding us that life's beauty and eternal mysteries flow in, around, and through us. 

FOLLOW more 'higher art' inspiration in our BIG PICTURE podcasts.

Kim S. MacKenzie (PhD) is an Australian Artist-Author-Philosopher and the founder of LANTERN LANE Studio Publishing. She has used soft pastels on cotton paper for over 33 years to create a large body of highly original semi-abstract artworks which are used to create unique and inspirational 'higher art' books, designed to engage the mind and spirit on a deeply profound level. With a life-long interest in human nature, mysticism, and metaphysics, her creative radar seeks to discover, fathom, and interpret, the rhythmic flow of universal forces and their innate relationship with matter.

"Higher art has the potential to benefit anyone open to engaging with it. Its richness and complexity offer something valuable for every mind and soul."