Liliana Fijman’s work is on display at gallery (401).

Liliana Fijman /PHOTO | Irina MissiuroLiliana Fijman is an artist, although she would probably cringe even at that broad definition. She thinks that artists are branded as eccentric and doesn’t want to be pigeonholed. Instead, she is looking to maintain her integrity and break stereotypes. “Appearances are misleading. I’m a rebel. I stay on the fringes.” Her personal philosophy is applicable to her work.

Spellbound by the idea of defying expectations, Fijman creates art in a metaphorical way, believing that nature’s qualities are reminiscent of human behavior. After her husband’s death 14 years ago, she found solace in transforming dead plants into images – two- and three-dimensional pieces. She soaks fibers in water to print, cut, emboss, shred or sculpt with the resulting textures.

When Fijman talks about an inky toothpick that doesn’t sink, one gets a sense of her deep identification with materials. She’s fascinated by the fact that our idea of liquid is challenged – after all, when we think of water, we don’t imagine writing in it. Breaking that preconceived notion is thrilling to her. Hence, Fijman resists certainty. Just as life is complicated – with its ambiguous feelings and interactions – so is art. Because it defies labels and enclosures, both figurative and literal ones, she says, “I hate frames. The frame cannot become the piece.” Instead, she prints her photos on metal to allow the work to stand on its own.

One advantage of art over reality is its ability to achieve seeming flawlessness. Fijman says, “You can make perfect circles, depending on how you touch the surface of the water.” In life, it’s harder to enclose a person in a circle. Fijman seems to inhabit a set of perpetually interlocking spheres. Among them are the dichotomies of haves and have not’s, photography and paper arts, civil society and Judaism, foreignness and citizenship, doubt and religion, free-spiritedness and perfectionism.

She struggles to keep her individuality within an environment that is not entirely different and yet not wholly embraceable. In her art, she prefers to work in contrasts – light and dark, strength and fragility, staging and spontaneity – and to find the middle somewhere in the process.

Born in the countryside of Cordoba, Argentina, Fijman grew up playing in nature with her two older brothers. She is at ease on dirt roads and farm land, not streets and asphalt. Knowing no restrictions, she played in the mud, competing with friends for the best landscape, created using tree roots, rocks and earth. Fijman believes that she had an inclination toward art at birth, “My art came with me.” She explored that interest by taking photographs, a hobby she pursued at the University of Cordoba, an education she completed at Rhode Island College and, later, continued at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Fijman shares that those initial university years were tough; the repressive government caused many to engage in uprisings and protests against inequality and the establishment. Possessing a progressive point of view was dangerous in a world defined by class struggle. “The Argentinean society was in shambles. I didn’t want to disappear,” she says, referring to those who were abducted and killed.

Growing up without any religious education, Fijman still saw herself as a Jew. Her grandparents’ roots lay in Russia and Poland. She remembers them speaking Yiddish and has fond memories of celebrating Jewish holidays. Conflicted about her stance and eager to learn about her background, in the ’60s she decided to resolve her identity in Israel, embarking on a year-long trip to study Hebrew, history and the Bible in Mahon. One of 50 students from Latin America, Fijman traveled the country and stayed on a kibbutz. The experience resulted in her becoming a Zionist.

In the early ’70s, she and her husband immigrated to the United States and had two boys. In addition to adapting to foreign customs, a new language and different social norms, Fijman had to confront religion. While she identified as a supporter of Israel, she saw herself as a non-believer. Because the ability to interpret the Torah appeals to her, she respects the study of it. Yet, she takes issue with being told exactly what the text means. She says, “My identity was fraught with paradoxical elements.”

Fijman resolved to maintain physiological and emotional stability through her art. She says that, when she creates, she abandons all logic, which, in her opinion, is an interruption that only frustrates the artistic process. Fijman chooses to act on intuition, the only path to true expression that she trusts. Through the path of creativity, she is able to awaken and nurture the child in her. Fijman’s work is a revelation of that youthful energy.

When she is creating art, she engages in a constant dialogue with her impulses. At times, she doesn’t know her aim but is open to discovering something that speaks to her along the way. Drawn to monochromatic images that bring her back to photography, – a major influence in her work – she is choosy about her materials. Fijman says that it took her four months to find a way to convey air for “Breath on the Line,” the artwork she exhibited at a biennial in Mexico. While she quickly found a thin wire to symbolize a line, to illustrate air was more difficult. After consulting a dictionary, she was able to crystallize the image of air and what it stands for – life – within an environmental context.

Through her tendency to relate to materials (“How does the wire respond to my wanting to twist it?”) and push them to their limit, as well as by incorporating language in her art, Fijman finds the desired effect. Whenever she exhibits work, she has to supply a description of the materials she works with; she enjoys writing it. About her ability to express herself in many ways, Fijman says, “I’m very multifaceted. My brain is prolific.” She explains that creativity often leads to more stimulation, and she then feels frustrated that she doesn’t have the time to address all of her ideas, saying, “I need eight arms!” Fijman forces herself to synthesize her inspirations and focus on one at a time.

She refrains from describing her art, preferring the viewers to interpret it. Fijman sees the role of the artist as secondary, believing that the final product must be loved for the image, not for the creator’s intention. The aesthetic side dominates any other concern. The artist is a means to an end – driven by the work, he obeys its demands. “You can’t control the process.”

Fijman is an expressive person who, to her dismay, is often misunderstood as pushy. She bristles at such categorizations. In fact, any attempt at identification angers Fijman. A grandmother of five boys, she doesn’t see herself fitting the standard notion of that term. A widow, she hates to be called that. “I’m a person. Get to know me.” An immigrant, she is still trying to survive as her own person, to avoid being absorbed by the dominant culture. When she cooks, pounds and transforms Mulberry tree fibers into art, she feels whole – she knows what she is doing; she is accepted; she is reborn. On her website, she writes, “I am alive. I am woman. I am constantly re-creating.”