Art intersecting with spirituality
Print Edition
TO Ariel Fabian Lijtmaer, the practice of meditation didn’t feel real until he accidentally had an experience in nature on a bridge.
“I felt myself becoming a note of vibration in time, and feeling my body melt away. That was a really powerful experience for me. That made me think meditation is a real tool,” Lijtmaer said in a Zoom interview with Shanghai Daily.
He was just a beginner at the time.
“My first 10 times I was sitting there, trying to breath a little bit and nothing happened,” he said. “But this time, I think being in nature and feeling like I’m sitting on a river made the whole situation different. Something happened internally, and that really woke me up to the power of meditation.”
Lijtmaer was born in New York City in 1974 to Jewish parents from Argentina. He’s curious about everything, especially the creative and spiritual path that made him what he is today: an artist, a story teller, a producer and an educator based in Los Angeles. From the snowy peaks of Nepal to the majestic coral reefs of northern Indonesia, he has traveled to more than 40 countries to widen his sphere of knowledge and enrich his understanding of the human spirit, helping him build systems of sustainability, creativity and wellness.
He started painting at the age of 8, and has a traditional painting background creating figurative art. For many years, he saw art as a way to create a safe space for himself. But as time passed, he started feeling trapped, always trying to create something specific.
“About 12 or 13 years ago, I started painting in a way to express my inner feelings, and I wasn't trying to create something specific anymore,” Lijtmaer said. “I was just trying to make colors and movement — whatever felt right. And I started getting very interested in combining the breath, the movement of the breath with my brush stroke, and became more conscious of that.”
It was during that time he fell in love with martial arts because of Bruce Lee.
“The movement of a sword and the movement of a brush are very connected,” he said. “In the West, I think a man with a sword is often hard and straight. But in the East, there's generally a balance between, ‘I'm a swordsman, I can focus energy that way, and I can also use that same energy to create,’ which is really beautiful.”
“Then my martial arts path, my meditation path and my art path all began to fuse together,” he added.
Lijtmaer’s artworks usually feature strong colors and movements. “My paintings are soul gateways in a style I call ‘spiritual abstract expressionism’.”
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