The light within
“Are you related to something infinite or not?”
—Carl Jung
JADINA LILIEN is an award-winning, multi-media artist working in photography, film and experimental theatre. She began her studies in painting at the Museum School in Boston and later integrated them into her MFA work in film and photography at New York University. She has been in solo and group exhibitions, including Quantum Entanglements (2023) and Nature’s Divination (2023), which explore chaos, synchronicity and nature. Wild With Spirit (2022) challenges photography’s static nature, while As Above (2021) reflects earth and sky with their mystical relationship. Her short film retrospective The Real in Fairytales (2018) blends documentary and fiction, and her book Butterfly Against the Wind, with Tiokasin Ghosthorse, explores the Lakota land and culture.
Recognized by the New York Foundation for the Arts and other institutions, Jadina has received the Warner Brothers Production Grant, the Martin Scorsese Award and a nomination for a Rockefeller Award. It is, therefore, with great honour that The Culturium is able to feature Jadina’s stunning photography and writing, which eloquently describes her artistic process and the raison d’être of her work. Drawing on the mysterious hidden forces of the universe, she brings forth visceral and evocative visions calling us from beyond.
© Jadina Lilien, Leaping Spirits.
We inherit not solely from our family bloodlines but also from spiritual and creative ancestors, who also shaped the paths we walk. Often, this deeper unknown lineage exerts a greater influence that touches our souls, informing our sense of meaning. For me, the mystical nature of creativity was a legacy passed down from those who came before. To bring this to life required engaging with a force beyond myself—a relationship with something infinite. Yet, the patterns of family and the collective can be hindrances restricting qualities that do not fit within their framework. Overcoming these limits requires consciousness, healing and a relationship with something greater. My art merges realms of creativity and quantum physics, weaving together the ordinary and the extraordinary—a collaboration with a great mystery.
© Jadina Lilien, Chaotic Beauty.
As a child, I lived in an enchanted world. I remember being captivated by the rippling circles that formed when I tossed a pebble into still water—concentric rings without beginning or end. Or diving into the ocean, letting the undertow pull me into its depths, unconcerned whether I would surface again, only to emerge plunging back under once more. In those years, the invisible world felt as near and natural as the air I breathed.
© Jadina Lilien, Falling Prayers.
Through this relationship with an intelligence beyond myself, life revealed what is unpredictable and full of possibility. I had not planned to become an artist or filmmaker, but the path seemed to unfold before me, as though life itself longed for my voice to be heard. By my final years of high school, after years of being taught to dismiss the creative force innate to us all, I began consciously reforging a relationship again, with that which lies beyond this visible reality.
© Jadina Lilien, Sea of Blue.
This change led me to art school, though none I attended held the answers to what I was searching for. Film school, however, taught me the power of story—how a single narrative can be viewed through endless perspectives, shifting with one’s intention and consciousness. I recognized that whether my work emerged from intuition, the heart or the mind, each source carried its own distinct outcome—a singular field of vision.
© Jadina Lilien, Threads of Existence.
After graduation, I faced an unexpected challenge: unlearning much of what formal education had impressed upon me. Intellectual conditioning had veiled my intuition, a gift we are all given, essential to life. Stepping away from filmmaking and exhibiting my art, I entered a period of silence—a retreat to reconsider a way of being truer than what I had been taught.
© Jadina Lilien, I Am The Flower.
It was during this time of quiet by the ocean, and through meeting my Sufi teacher, that I remembered the intimacy with waves I had known as a child. Knowing again that inherent trust, surrendering and falling in love with Earth again. In the years that followed—through exhibitions and the creation of my book, Butterfly Against the Wind, informed by Indigenous thinking—I experienced a deepening sense of unity with Earth. I came to see that ancient teachings are not relics of the past but living truths alive in the moment, along with hints of the future. Guided by these timeless principles, I began translating this language of inner knowing into outer tangible forms—works that reflect the multidimensional nature of our existence.
© Jadina Lilien, Scattering Innocence.
“The saint, the artist, and the poet are all one in the Fool,
in him they live, in him the poetic imagination of life lives.’’
—Cecil Collins
We are stewards of an inheritance—a continuation of the work begun by those who came before us. I find myself within the lineage of Poetic Imagination, visual art as poetry that seeks to reveal what rational thought cannot make sense of. Creativity, as a sacred act bringing light into the world hidden within language, music and imagery. It is an offering and a participation in the divine rhythm of creation itself. Aren’t we creation creating?
© Jadina Lilien, Woven From Randomness.
The works I share here arise from this path—relating to Earth as a living being with whom we are in relationship. My art is a process of experiencing how inner and outer landscapes meet, forming a circle that mirrors the interconnectedness of all things.
© Jadina Lilien, Unified Reality.
We live in a liminal time, a transition between stories. As shadows stretch across the world, more people are drawn to the light within. Creativity becomes a source, carrying the promise of new life, even in uncertainty. As the Greek proverb says, ‘A society grows great when people plant trees in whose shade they will never sit.’ In this spirit, my art is an offering for the future—carrying a message bigger than myself.
Post Notes
- Feature image: © Jadina Lilien, With The Wind
- ConstellateChange.com
- Jadina Lilien Studio on Facebook
- Jadina Lilien on Instagram
- Jadina Lilien, Butterfly Against the Wind on Etsy
- Kedar Misani: SOULFUL PHOTOGRAPHY
- John Devitt: Cloud Illusions
- Tobias Wilkinson: German Forest Primer
- Roy Whenary: Open Awareness
- Jerry Katz: Let the Scene See You
- Laura Emerson: Deep Sea Contemplation
- Gabriel Rosenstock & Ron Rosenstock: Haiku Enlightenment
- The Culturium uses affiliate marketing links via the Amazon Associates Programme
