The Secret Language of Shells: Why These Symbols Speak to Us

By Carmen Delprat

Have you ever wondered why certain symbols feel like they’re speaking directly to you?

Why a shape, a line, a fragment from nature can stir something quiet but unmistakable in your chest?

Shells hold that kind of power.

Across cultures and centuries, they’ve represented protection, femininity, eternity, intuition, memory and the unfolding of the inner self. But more than that — shells carry stories. They are records of growth, time and resilience, formed layer by layer through pressure, change and patience.

In my art, shells aren’t simply natural objects. They’re thresholds — invitations to step deeper into the emotional and symbolic world beneath the surface.

My newest illustration, featuring two exotic shells painted in mint green and gold, explores this secret visual language in a way that feels both intimate and expansive. The shells face left and right, holding a gentle tension between opposites: past and future, inner and outer, reflection and emergence.

Between them, something new begins.

Shells as Symbols of Duality and Becoming

When I began this piece, I didn’t intend for the shells to speak to each other — but as they took shape, their conversation became impossible to ignore.

One leans left, the other right. Two forces balancing each other quietly.Two timelines meeting in the present moment.

The left-facing shell morphed into the face of a young girl — peaceful, determined, gazing upward as though she’s listening to something beyond words. Her expression carries the emotional tone I feel when I work with shells: a blend of softness and strength, innocence and wisdom, fragility and endurance.

Shells often mirror our own growth.They form slowly.Silently.In darkness.Layer upon layer, they protect the tender life inside — until one day that life breaks open and expands.

The girl inside the shell felt like an echo of this process. A reminder that becoming isn’t loud — it’s quiet, patient, interior.

The Shell Keepers Vision

The Face Within the Shell: A Symbol of the Human Spirit

When the shell evolved into her face, it felt like the symbolism wanted to reveal itself.

The message became clear:

Our strength is built the same way shells grow — layer by layer, moment by moment, shaped by experience rather than perfection.

Her upward gaze carries a sense of knowing. Not intellectual knowledge — but intuitive truth. The kind you feel in your chest before you can explain it.

She isn’t looking at the viewer. She’s looking beyond, toward the inner horizon of her own becoming.

This is what shells represent in my work:

• inner resilience

• spiritual unfolding

• the quiet accumulation of wisdom

• the beauty of the unseen

• the way life shapes us gently and relentlessly

  
  

When shells meet portraiture, the result is a merging of the earthly and the symbolic — a reminder that we are both physical and mythic, human and more-than-human.

Rose Murex Dreaming Fine Art Prints

Colour as Symbol: Mint Green, Gold and Pacific Blue

Colour is never an afterthought in my work. It is part of the message.

Mint Green — Renewal + Healing

The mint green I chose for the shells radiates growth.It feels fresh, alive, balancing and intuitive — a colour of personal evolution. Green is known for its calming effect on the nervous system, which is why these shells feel like they’re holding space for breath.

Gold — Wisdom + Inner Value

The golden swirls layered across the shells represent enlightenment, potential and inner worth. Gold elevates the ordinary into something sacred.In this piece, it whispers:

“Your transformation is not just survival — it is valuable, beautiful, luminous.”

Blue — Stillness + Depth

The blue background creates emotional grounding.It connects sky and sea, the infinite and the intimate.

Blue is the colour of trust, memory and introspection — the perfect backdrop for a narrative about inner strength and renewal.

Together, these colours form a conversation:growth (green), wisdom (gold), depth (blue). A triad of becoming.

Why Shells Speak to Us — Across Time and Culture

Shells have long been associated with:

• protection — the exterior that keeps the interior safe

• femininity — the creative, intuitive, receptive aspects of being

• time — spirals that mirror cosmic patterns

• rebirth — leaving one form to expand into another

• the unconscious — what we know without knowing how we know

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They appear in ancient mythologies, religious art, and contemporary design — always as spiritual anchors.

Their spiral shape mirrors the Fibonacci sequence, the geometry of galaxies, flowers, DNA. We respond to them because our bodies instinctively recognise the pattern.

Shells tell the truth of life: we expand, we retreat, we grow, we begin again.

Why Shell Symbolism Resonates in Contemporary Art

In a fast-moving world, many people are seeking art that helps them feel grounded and connected. Shell symbolism offers:

• emotional clarity

• calm

• timeless meaning

• visual serenity

• a sense of homecoming

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This is why collectors are drawn to it — not because shells are “pretty,” but because they carry wisdom.

When morphing with human forms, the symbolism becomes even richer:

We are nature. We are transformation. We are unfolding.

Collectors tell me that these pieces make them feel:

• centred

• reflective

• encouraged

• connected to something larger than themselves

And this is the true power of symbolic art: it makes the inner world visible.

Final Thoughts: The Quiet Power of Becoming

This illustration is more than an experiment in colour and form. It is a portrait of transformation — the kind that happens slowly, quietly, beautifully.

The shells, with their mint green glow and gold spirals, hold the story of growth.The girl’s face holds the story of inner strength. And the blue space around them holds the calm needed to witness both.

My hope is that this piece invites you to pause —to recognise the layers you’ve grown, the resilience you’ve built and the beauty of the person you’re becoming.

Thank you for stepping inside this world with me.

If this symbolism resonates, I would love to hear your thoughts — and to share more of the surreal, ocean-inspired, emotionally grounded artwork emerging from my studio.

Art. Emotion. Lumina.