Ariana Papademetropoulos on the Creative Shortcut

In the summer of 2024, Raphaël Stein, Creative Director at the David Lynch Foundation, visited the painter Ariana Papademetropoulos in her studio in Los Angeles, California. What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Raphaël Stein: When and where did you first learn about Transcendental Meditation?

Ariana Papademetropoulos: I found out about Transcendental Meditation through a friend. I was going to CalArts, and I must have been around twenty years old. My friend asked me if I wanted to do TM, and I had tried different meditations practices, and I found them all quite difficult because my brain would just take over all of my thoughts. And then she told me that it was David Lynch’s foundation. And I think because I was such a fan of his, it felt like a gateway as he didn’t seem like the type of person to be very new age, and I liked that about his interest in Transcendental Meditation.

Ariana Papademetropoulos in her studio in Los Angeles, California, 2024.

RS: What was the first time that you experienced transcendence? 

AP: The first time I did Transcendental Meditation was not so far from here in Hollywood in this little bungalow house, and this lovely woman who had been working there since the sixties gave me my mantra. I think it just took a few times to go in [to transcendence] and I suppose the way it felt is like going under water—being calm and full, light but also grounded at the same time. I have been hypnotized for my whole life, and it was a little bit like that, in a way, but without having to have the hypnotist take me there. I could do it on my own. 

I have been studying Dr. Masaru Emoto, and I have used him in some of my work. He did all of these studies on water and how consciousness has a direct impact on water in [its] physical form rather than just [remaining] non-physical. And I think I like relating him to Transcendental Meditation because everything we do has a direct impact on the world around us. If we are under water, then we are in this unified field and we’re connected. 

Dr. Masaru Emoto's study on words and water

RS: How do you feel that accessing the vibrations of the unified field transforms your painting? 

AP: I think tapping into this unified field is a way to have a shortcut in some ways. I think of these paintings coming directly from that field. Sometimes we get a bit locked into—especially with art—having everything be intellectualized and conceptualized. I think that painting, like other art forms, is its own language. That's a visceral feeling that you get from the painting that is very similar to having visions when you are inside the transcendent realm. 

I suppose I think of doing transcendental meditation as a shortcut. In our everyday life it feels like a lot to just take a pause for ten minutes a day to go into that field. But, I do think that once you go into that realm it allows you to bypass a lot of things that you wouldn’t be able to. In that unified realm you can get to other realms. You can connect with other people and it actually saves a lot of time and worry and stress because you get to the core and the source. 

Ariana Papademetropoulos, Plutonian Cave of Eleusis,  2021.

RS: What advice would you give to aspiring artists and meditators who wish to explore synergy between art and consciousness? 

AP: My advice would be that there are different realms, and we are at different layers, and the one that we are in—that we can see—can be somewhat overwhelming, somewhat distracting. Our phones, the news, all of that [makes it] very difficult to connect to yourself, your own desires, and your own ideas. So much influence is from the outside world. So for me, I think Transcendental Meditation helps me get to the core of my own creations, of my own ideas that are not influenced from the outside world. 

I don’t think of Transcendental Meditation as being an escape, in the same way that I think my paintings are not fantasy based. For me, I think that it’s the most real that there are different levels of perception and if you can tap into one form of perception, you can see the reality that’s really there. That reality can be very fantastical, can be magical, but it's about stepping into that dimension and allowing for that to happen. 

RS: Did any of your paintings emerge spontaneously from a deeper state [of consciousness]? 

AP: I think they all do. You get little pings, little visions. David Lynch says it very well, but it’s like you get a little piece of an idea and then you have to chase it before it runs away. I think of these paintings as all being from the place [get to] when you go within. These ideas also come from the subconscious and from the collective unconscious—universal images. 

Ariana Papademetropoulos in her studio in Los Angeles, California, 2024.

RS: What are your thoughts on passions and mantras? 

AP: I like working on one painting at a time, because the energy of working on that one painting translates through the paint and you kind of hold the excitement. If you let it go, then you let the magic go. I kind of think of a painting as a magical object that holds energy, and so it is like meditation in a way because you have to go deeper and sit with it. If you let it go and you rip yourself out of it, you don’t get the benefit from going deeper. I think that going deeper and deeper is when the magic comes. 

RS: The painter Leonora Carrington once said, “You are trying to intellectualize something desperately and you are wasting your time.” 

AP: I think sometimes with art, we feel the need to conceptualize it or intellectualize it and really it's about having that visceral experience. Sometimes there doesn't need to be language to understand something, it's about the feeling of it—with meditation and with painting. 

This conversation is a part of a recurring series The Deep—interviews of multidisciplinary artists who practice Transcendental Meditation.