âGod wants us to experience life deeply and art is one way to help us do that,â says painter Makoto Fujimura. Spencer Burke drops in on Mako at his New York City art studio where he is working on what he calls a âhybridâ paintingâa collision of heaven and earth. Mako describes how his painting explores what it might look and feel like for heaven to invade earth, just like weâas earthly beingsâare invaded by the heavenly, by God. Mako says we are trained NOT to see and experience things. His desire is to draw people to see more. Whatâs true on canvass is more true in life, and the tension or conflict we feel through artâwhether paintings or plays or other mediaâis good. If we allow ourselves to feel this tension, and to know conflict or sorrow or joyâthen art can take us on an amazing adventure. The tension is that we all are consumers of culture because we live in this world. Sometimes the culture or the visual images are disturbing and we might want to divorce ourselves from our cult...
