The exhibition Bedknobs and Broomsticks (title inspired by the iconic 1971 film) has mostly been informed by Gary Lachhmans essay Rejected Knowledge and how these ideas can be portraited through visual storytelling.  

Gary Lachman’s essay on “rejected knowledge” explores forms of understanding that have been dismissed or excluded by mainstream Western thought, particularly since the Enlightenment. In his essay, he argues that modern rationalism and scientific materialism narrowed what counts as “legitimate” knowledge, pushing aside traditions like mysticism, esotericism, alchemy, and spiritual philosophy. 

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Lachman suggests these systems represent alternative ways of knowing that engage intuition, symbolism, and inner experience, modes that modern culture often undervalues. He traces how this divide emerged historically, showing that what we now consider “irrational” was once deeply embedded in intellectual life. 

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Several paintings draw explicitly on these traditions. Virgula Divina references the divining rod, a symbolic instrument associated with dowsing and the pursuit of hidden or inaccessible truths, embodying a belief in unseen forces that operate beyond empirical verification. Similarly, Eye of the Hag invokes the act of looking through a hag stone, a folkloric practice said to reveal otherwise concealed realms, suggesting alternative ways of seeing that challenge conventional distinctions between the visible and the invisible. 

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Other works in the exhibition approach these ideas more obliquely, emphasizing the imaginative act itself as a means of engaging with the unknown. Through surreal, narrative-driven imagery, these paintings propose that storytelling and symbolic interpretation can function as legitimate modes of inquiry.