From Marks to Meaning... How Symbols Shape Our World

Louise Brook
Jul 1
4 min read

The Inspiration for a New Collection

I am delighted to unveil my latest (2025) abstract collection: “From Marks to Meaning…”

"From Marks to Meaning..." is a bold set of four works in acrylic and mixed media, inspired by SYMBOLS. I am fascinated by how we as humans (uniquely) use symbols, their role in human evolution and development and how ubiquitous they have now become as part of the modern day psyche.

From ancient cave paintings and Egyptian hieroglyphs to modern day branding and emojis, symbols surround us and enrich our lives. Symbols allow ideas to be communicated across generations and borders, conveying emotion, facilitating communication and shaping cultures.

With this collection, my aim was to bring the story of symbols to life, using rich layers of collage, colour, shapes and marks, as well as the symbols themselves. From intuitive painting to deliberate storytelling, this collection invites viewers to not just decode the symbols, but to question how they shape our inner lives as much as the world outside.

Research: A Part of My Creative Process

An integral part of my creative process is researching and learning about the things that inspire me, and my research into the world of Symbols was fascinating. In this blog I wanted to share some insights into where my research took me and some discoveries and facts that inspired the work.

(As usual, all of my research sources are also quoted in full at the end of the blog.)

Symbols: A Silent Language Shaping Humankind

Since the first human scratched a mark onto a cave wall in the flickering torchlight of the Palaeolithic era, a powerful universal language has been developing, a form of communication which transcends geography, time, and the spoken word.

Unlike many traditional languages that are dying or (at the very least) becoming diluted, this language pulses through our daily lives more strongly than ever. It weaves it’s meaning through art, communication, culture, and consciousness shaping our lives, probably much more than we are consciously aware. This is the language of SYMBOLS.

From First Marks: Cave Paintings

Early humans inscribed meaning through image and form, recording their world with paint and pigment. In the Dordogne region of France, the Lascaux Caves boast nearly 2,000 figures including horses, bulls and abstract signs, some of which date back 20,000 years. Further East, the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave reveals wonderfully preserved images of cave lions and rhinoceroses, created between 37,000 and 28,000 years ago.

These early symbols weren’t just decoration; they encoded myths, marked sacred rituals and preserved collective memory for future generations; these cave paintings were the first attempts by early humans to imprint their thoughts onto the world.

To Hieroglyphs and the Dawn of Writing

In Ancient Egypt, pictorial icons evolved into a formal script. Egyptian hieroglyphs combined over 1,000 characters that graced temple walls and funerary texts. Hieroglyph were considered “the gods’ words,” with each symbol carrying both a phonetic value and a spiritual significance. Hieroglyphs are believed to have paved the way for alphabetic systems worldwide.

Fast Forward to Emojis: The New Hieroglyphs

Since 1999, emojis have exploded from 176 Japanese icons to over 3,600 global symbols, which enrich text with emotional nuance and tone. Research shows emojis increase engagement and clarify intent in an increasingly online world. In many ways, today’s emojis are the hieroglyphs of the 21st century, conveying sentiment across continents at the tap of a finger.

The Psychology Behind Symbols

Psychologically, symbols allow us to compress volumes of meaning into a single mark. Symbols bypass the rational brain, striking at something deeper: memory, emotion and instinct. Colour, form, cultural significance and historical connotations all play into a symbol’s meaning: a red circle with a diagonal means “No” around the world, and National flags stir pride, or protest.

In today’s visually saturated world, we are surrounded by symbols: Logos, icons, flags, emojis, street signs, memes. Symbols govern our daily lives, each one instantly conveying complex cultural and emotional messages without a single word.

Unlike spoken language, which changes drastically across borders and generations, symbols often transcend time and borders, they evolve and adapt: ancient spirals reappear in modern tattoos and sacred geometry from ancient India reappears in contemporary digital art.

Explore the Collection

Dive deeper and see how Symbols inspired a new collection and how the research translated into paintings for my latest collection. Visit the Virtual Gallery here and enjoy the impact of the framed pieces, while searching for the signs and symbols in the close up, detailed shots.

🔗 Discover the collection: From Marks to Meaning…