An interview with: Clara Gallego Bernaldo de Quirós
- Jul 8
- 6 min read
Exploring the I Ching through artistic enquiry with @bernaldo_de_quiros
The I Ching (or Book of Changes) is one of the oldest surviving Chinese texts, with origins in the early Zhou Dynasty over 3,000 years ago. First compiled as a manual for divination, it consists of sixty-four hexagrams used to interpret changing circumstances. Over time, it developed into a philosophical classic that explores the principles of change, balance, and human decision-making. As one of the foundational texts of Chinese thought, it has had a lasting influence on Confucianism, Daoism, and Chinese culture...
Tradition credits the legendary sage Fu Xi with discovering the eight trigrams after observing sacred markings revealed on the shell of a turtle emerging from the Luo River, inspiring the patterns that became the basis of the text. Each hexagram is made from six broken or unbroken lines, creating a binary-like structure that fascinated the mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who recognized its resemblance to binary notation and modern computing...
Legendary ethnobotanist Terence McKenna described the I Ching not as a fortune-telling device but as a "thermometer" of the present moment. His point was that the I Ching does not predict a predetermined future; instead, it measures the underlying dynamics or "temperature" of a situation as it exists at the time the question is asked through the intention of the person asking the question. The I Ching has also been linked symbolically to modern genetics because its sixty-four hexagrams correspond to the sixty-four possible codons in the genetic code. Each hexagram is formed from six broken or unbroken lines, creating 64 unique combinations, while DNA uses sequences of four nucleotide bases arranged in groups of three to produce 64 codons that encode amino acids.
"Three years ago, I started creating a series of works based on my study of the I Ching... I personally think the I Ching is one of the most advanced systems designed for understanding change, patterns and the invisible structure of reality in which I’m very interested in. I am not looking at the I Ching as a relic or curiosity. I see it as a living language a sort of map of consciousness. It has taken me into some deep questions: How do we navigate through the uncertainty of the unknown? What does it mean to listen to something outside of rational thought? Where does intuition end and revelation begin? It was a portal for Carl Jung, John Cage, the 1960s counterculture and countless seekers before them, yet its application to modern visual and creative practice continues to remain largely unexplored." - Clara Gallego Bernaldo de Quirós
All featured I Ching artworks by Clara Gallego Bernaldo de Quirós
Read on below for the full interview...
First of all how are you... are there any particular feelings arising within you recently?
It’s a strange time for me, to be honest. I feel the full force of this dizzying technological boom and the latest global conflicts. Sometimes I get the feeling that we are gradually drifting away from our original source, so I believe we have the responsibility to redefine and clarify what progress is and what it means to be human at this moment in history. I am very concerned about the ethical governance of artificial intelligence; it’s an issue that really keeps me awake at night. So I feel attentive, in a state of listening. Not to something external, but to a kind of underlying pattern that is slowly revealing itself. I think that meaning is always ahead of language, and I’m learning to stay there a little longer, I guess in the hope of drawing some meaningful conclusion from what I see going on around me. However, I cannot recall a time in my life when I felt more grateful than I do now.
Please could you tell us about yourself; where are you from, where do you live now, and what do you love?
I currently live in the city where I was born, Oviedo, in northern Spain. I returned to Asturias after living abroad for 17 years. I don’t know how long I’ll stay here, but for now I’m feeling good. I love this region because it allows me to have a very personal relationship with nature and brings me closer to simplicity, which, for a complex person like me, has become a necessity. Living here also allows me to devote myself to my true passions: literature (my first calling), art, meditation and martial arts. Being close to my family and staying in touch with my own childhood also takes on a special significance at this stage of my life.
What does the I Ching mean to you, through your own understanding?
For me it’s not a tool to predict but to reflect, its ancient origins make it a kind of backbone of self- knowledge. It amazes me how this text has so much to say to someone alive right now, in 2026, navigating a world in radical transformation. The hexagrams reveal the structure of a moment, the core truth of a particular period, which is destined to last until we have fully experienced and overcome it. It brings clarity without forcing conclusions, which I find deeply honest. I personally think the I Ching is one of the most advanced systems designed for understanding change, patterns and the invisible structure of reality in which I’m very interested in.
Please tell us about your on going project of creating artworks for the 64 hexagrams in the I Ching?
The project began as a need to give form to something intangible. The I Ching felt like a living system, and I wanted to enter into dialogue with it visually. Over three years, each hexagram became less an illustration and more an encounter, somehow the 64 hexagrams became less like subjects and more like presences. What surprised me most is that the work started to respond back. It taught me patience, and to trust that meaning unfolds rather than being imposed. It gave me a fresh new eye to my artistic practice and completely altered my perception of time.
I’ve started to measure my own stopwatch differently; I have a new awareness of the past and have lost interest in the future because of the strong sense of belonging I feel to the present, which is where change takes place. My pictures then are not fixed outcomes; they feel like pauses within a larger movement. However, designing 64 structures of change with their accompanying texts is a long and demanding task; sometimes has led me to moments when I’ve thought it made no sense to carry on – it’s not all smooth sailing when you’re creating. Right now I’ve got seven pictures left to complete the whole visual adaptation of the book, and even though I’m so close to the end, I’m actually in one of those moments!
When creating an artwork for a specific individual hexagram of the I Ching, how much is guided by your own intuition and how much is guided by the book?
At first, I followed the original Wilhem translation text closely. Over time, intuition became the bridge. I don’t see them as separate anymore—the text opens a door, but intuition decides how to walk through it. My graphics happen somewhere in between. I Ching words destabilizes certainty, and intuition reorganizes it, but somehow the distinction dissolves. I don’t decide the image as much as I allow it to surface, sometimes against my own graphic criteria. I love that.
How do we navigate through the uncertainty of the unknown and what does it mean to listen to something outside of rational thought?
I guess by resisting the impulse to resolve it prematurely. The unknown is not empty—it is dense with information we cannot immediately decode. To listen beyond reason is to accept that understanding is not always linear. I’ve come to the realization that there is knowledge in not knowing. Listening beyond rational thought is not abandoning reason, but softening it allowing other forms of perception to emerge. And they do.
What does Spirituality mean to you?
A discipline of perception. Not belief, but sensitivity to what is subtle, cyclical, and often overlooked. Something closer to attunement than to definition. For me is a way of being present to what is, without trying to dominate it. Actually, I think spirituality forces us to surrender, which is why it’s so tough to cultivate. Our ego always gets in the way, especially in the artistic practice, hindering that bond. But it’s worth the effort to overcome our own self-centredness; it’s surprising what we can find beyond ourselves.
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Discover more of Clara Gallego Bernaldo de Quirós via:
- Astral Magazine
