Ted Barr
Ted Barr – Artist, Visionary, and Creator of the FLY Method
Barr is an internationally exhibited artist, author, curator, and the creator of the FLY method—Free the Life within You—an intuitive philosophy and creative system that integrates spiritual exploration, artistic expression, and transformative inner work.
After serving as a Deputy Battalion Commander in the Israeli army and achieving the rank of Major, Barr left military life in 1980. He turned inward, dedicating a decade to the study of Symbolism, Buddhism, and Kabbala. This journey laid the foundation for the unique visual and philosophical language that would later define his art and teaching.
In 1995, Barr began intensive training under Israeli master Shlomo Tzafrir in Old Jaffa. His first public exhibition opened there in 2001. From the start, Barr’s work has explored celestial space, embryonic life, and the mystery of life and death—themes he uses as metaphors for inner awakening and human potential.
At the heart of all of Barr’s creations is the FLY method. More than a technique, FLY is a way of life: a spiritual and psychological toolset designed to help individuals access creativity, authenticity, and inner freedom. The method is deeply embodied in Barr’s work—not only in his canvases but in his books, workshops, and public talks. Rather than sign his name on his art, Barr uses a private symbol representing the FLY philosophy—a visual code reflecting his esoteric studies and commitment to inner growth.
Barr has shared his vision with audiences around the world, exhibiting in over 30 cities, including New York, Montreal, Tokyo, Berlin, Seoul, Miami, Venice, Paris, and Tel Aviv. In 2009, he founded The Current Art Group, curating FLY-inspired exhibitions globally and cultivating a community of artists working at the intersection of art and consciousness.
He has authored several books, including:
• FLY – Have Magic in Your Life – the foundation of the FLY method
• Krombie – a children’s story with a chick as hero.
• Frau Gruber’s Farm – a symbolic narrative about the Holocaust
• The Man Who Was Almost There – a transformation story.
• Journey in the Milky Way – a metaphorical roadmap from the ordinary to the extraordinary
In the wake of the October 2023 attack on Israel, Barr and his life partner, Orly, founded the NGO Home Front to assist families affected by war. Within a 17,000 sq. ft. hangar, he relocated his studio and created the Home Front Art Studio—a space for healing through art. There, he painted the series Shivaa, seven monumental wood panels depicting the chaos of war, and continues to host workshops and group visits that combine the FLY philosophy with community support and artistic exploration.
Today, Barr continues to lead FLY workshops worldwide, helping others unlock the power of creativity, live with passion, and free the life within.
Ted, your FLY method celebrates freedom, spontaneity, and the embrace of the unexpected. How do you see this philosophy not only shaping your canvases but also transforming the individuals who participate in your workshops worldwide, and what role do you believe this kind of openness plays in nurturing resilience in our increasingly structured and controlled societies?
The first sentence I say in every FLY workshop is: “The only rule in the FLY method is that you cannot stay within the lines.”
FLY—Free the Life within You—is not a painting technique; it is a way of life, and an invitation to ignite the dormant essence of freedom, and creativity that exists within each of us. In my writings, my art, and my workshops, I aim to create an experience that engages all the senses. We are conditioned to work toward fixed results, but in FLY, the so-called “result” reveals itself along the way. There is a liberating joy in letting go of judgment—both self-judgment and the gaze of others—and simply embracing expression for its own sake.
At the FLY workshops, we are not concerned with producing something “beautiful, valuable, or showable.” Instead, we cultivate joy, spontaneity, and harmony. This is why I love working with participants that are far from the art world—programmers, engineers, lawyers, accountants, people who often tell me, “I’ve never touched a brush in my life.” My reply is always the same: “Perfect. That means you are about to discover a new language of expression.”
This kind of openness is a vital antidote to the increasingly structured and controlled societies in which we live. If people could carry even a spark of the FLY spirit into their daily lives—fearless, playful, and open to the changes—it would transform not only their creative experience, but also the way they live, relate, and build resilience. My wish is that the FLY spirit will spread across our planet, shaping human lives for the better everywhere.
In your work, the cosmic and the cellular collapse into one another, stars mirror ovum, galaxies resemble embryos. How has this parallel between the infinitely vast and the intimately small reshaped your own perception of existence, and do you see painting as a way of reconciling these two scales of life?
My paintings are layered, and so too are my thoughts about existence. To respond, I will unfold the answer in layers.
On the surface layer, both the cosmic and the cellular appear as patterns—spirals, orbits, membranes—forms that can be seen and traced. A galaxy expanding into darkness and an embryo floating in the womb are variations of the same design, reminding us that scale is an illusion.
On a deeper layer, we recognize that we are stardust. The human body is not separate from the universe but a direct imprint of it. The Talmudic sentence “as above, so below” encapsulates this universal unity: the ovum mirrors the sun, the embryo echoes the galaxy. My work, Galaxy - Embryo, was born from this sense of symmetry between the immeasurable vastness and the most fragile beginnings.
In the innermost layer, beyond form, in rare moments of awakeness, I sense that there is no “out there”. The universe exists in our consciousness; the division between self and cosmos is only in our minds. I feel the eternal pulse—without origin, without end. The body stops at the skin, the mind reaches the stars.
Painting, for me, is not a reconciliation but a revelation. It uncovers what was always present: that art, like life, is a brief illusion, a shimmering veil through which we glimpse eternity.
You speak often of layers, layers of pigment, tar, and medium, but also layers of memory, body, and time. Can you elaborate on how the act of layering in your studio mirrors the construction of your own inner life, and how you hope viewers might discover their own “layers” reflected through your canvases?
Any human life is constructed out of layers. In the RECO art series, I delve into the boundaries of reality perception and contemplate the stories, images, and memories that form our individual translations of reality. Each moment is a unique, never-before-experienced span of time. Every encounter, every breath, is another layer added to the endless archive of being.
Though our days may appear repetitive, we are never the same. With each heartbeat, our bodies flow through change—our blood, our nerves, our emotions, shifting like tides. On a cosmic scale, we are not still for a single instant: Planet Earth propels us through space at a staggering 66,666 miles per hour, a silent reminder that every passing second carries us into uncharted territory.
In the studio, layering becomes both metaphor and mirror. Pigments, tar, and textures accumulate like the strata of lived experience—some hidden, some revealed, all inseparable. My canvases embody the same paradox as life: a seen surface shaped by what lies beneath.
I hope that viewers, standing before these works, might sense echoes of their own hidden layers. The RECO art series is an invitation to dwell upon what we choose to REveal and what to COnceal in our lives.
Your artistic journey has carried you across continents, from Kathmandu to Milan, from art academies to fashion houses. How has the act of transposing your cosmic biological imagery into diverse mediums such as cars, carpets, and architecture expanded your own understanding of what art can be, and what has surprised you most in this ongoing dialogue between disciplines?
A week ago, a large package arrived from Bhadohi, India—two carpets woven by hand at Satyam Rugs Emporium, inspired by my Alps series artworks. The thought that people 3,000 miles from my home sit at looms, weaving my vision thread by thread, fills me with wonder. For me, this is not just collaboration, it is communion.
My journey has taken FLY imagery far beyond the canvas: furniture designed with Casa Arte in Udaipur, fashion collections with Label2 Fashion House in Milan, Ferrari cars in Boca Raton, office interiors shaped by the FLY logo with TIFA Arts Studio in Tel Aviv, and soon four new buildings in the Arnona education compound in Jerusalem, realized with V5 Architects Firm. Each of these encounters reveals to me that art should not remain confined to walls—it must breathe into the fabric of daily life, becoming a living companion in the spaces we inhabit.
I remember vividly when Robin, my Miami representative, phoned and insisted I come to Boca Raton: the Ferrari dealership owner wanted my art on two cars. At first, I thought it was a joke—I had never painted on cars before. But soon one Ferrari FF was dressed in one of my Deep Space artworks, and on the second Ferrari I painted live during the gala opening. It was a moment of revelation: art could transform a vehicle into a cosmic vessel.
What has surprised me most is not the medium itself—be it fabric, steel, tar, glass, or stone—but the alchemy that happens when art expands into uncharted territories. The image mutates, yet the essence persists. Each project whispers the same lesson I pass to my students: train yourself to say “yes.” Because every “yes” carries the potential to open another layer in the dialogue between art and life, reminding us again and again that creativity is boundless, if only we allow it to cross thresholds.
Teaching is central to your mission, and through FLY workshops, you empower others to create without fear of failure or preconception. In what ways has the act of teaching reshaped your own artistic practice, and do you consider the classroom and the canvas equally vital sites of creation?
The studio, the canvas, the workshop, the written page—these are not separate realms, but parallel currents in the same river. Each one is a vessel through which the FLY essence flows, each one a mirror reflecting a different facet of being.
Teaching has become, for me, another form of creation. Where the canvas holds layers of tar, pigment, and texture, the classroom holds layers of dialogue, curiosity, and revelation. Both require patience, both demand surrender. Both are sites where the unknown waits to be revealed.
The canvas teaches me solitude.
The classroom teaches me communion.
The canvas whispers in silence.
The classroom vibrates with voices.
On the canvas, I face the unknown within myself.
In the classroom, I face the unknown reflected in others.
And in both, I discover the same truth:
creation is not about control,
But surrender.
Not certainty,
but eternal search.
Not repetition,
but the courage to step into what has never been before.
This is the art of embracing the unexpected.
This is FLY.
The Cycles of Life series meditates on beginnings, transformations, and the inevitability of death as part of a continuum. How do you negotiate the delicate balance of presenting existential themes not as despair but as wonder, and how do you harness abstraction to make these universal questions visually resonant?
The FLY philosophy began with a simple yet radical question: Is there a truth shared by all religions? To seek an answer, I immersed myself in the rituals and mysteries of different traditions—the Lipan tribes in New Mexico, the death rites of Varanasi, the Shinto of Japan, the Hawaiian practice of Ho‘oponopono, the gnostic revelations of Kabbala. What struck me deeply was their shared recognition that the body is but a vessel, while the essence within—the spirit, alma, ruach, seishin—is a universal divine entity. Flesh is temporary; spirit is eternal.
From this insight flows a choice: to attach ourselves to the flesh and bones and remain bound to the planetary, or to align with spirit and rise into the celestial realm. The Cycles of Life series is my attempt to render these ruminations visible—through color, through form, through symbols that carry the resonance of both sub-atomic and inter-galactic forms.
I want my viewers to pause before these works and feel the brevity of existence: yesterday we were born, today we stand before an image, tomorrow we leave the body. What, then, is the meaning of this transformation? What does it say about us as human beings, forever poised between matter and eternity?
India has become a second home to me; I have travelled there twelve times, and soon I will be in Mumbai again. Once, when a friend passed away, his disciple looked at me and said simply, “Rajesh is in transition.” That word—transition—holds the essence of my work. Death is not an end, but a movement, a passage, a change of form.
Abstraction allows me to approach these truths without didacticism. It bypasses narrative and slips directly into the universal. Shapes, pigments, and layers become metaphors for what words cannot capture. They allow the viewer not only to see but to sense the mystery: that life and death are not opposites, but cycles, forever turning.
Circle opens,
Circle closes.
Birth - death.
Death - birth.
The vessel evaporates,
The essence flows on.
What we lose in matter,
We gain as energy.
Cycles of Life.
Your refusal to sign your canvases with a traditional signature, opting instead for a personal esoteric symbol, suggests an art that is both deeply personal and universally shared. Could you reflect on the significance of this gesture, and how it situates your paintings as both an intimate extension of self and part of a collective, almost anonymous, human story?
In one of my interviews, I said that when I create my art, I prefer Ted Barr to stay out of the studio. A traditional signature fixes a work to an individual, to a name, to the weight of ego. I chose long ago not to bind my art in that way. Instead, I mark my canvases with a symbol—an esoteric sign that holds meaning for me, yet also opens to interpretation. It is not an announcement of authorship, but an invitation into dialogue.
The symbol functions like a seed. To some, it may appear merely decorative, to others it may carry echoes of ancient glyphs or spiritual codes. For me, it is a reminder: the painting does not belong to me alone. I may be the channel, but the work is born of layers far greater than my own—memory, ancestry, cosmic rhythm, cellular life. To place my name upon it would feel like claiming what was never mine.
By releasing the personal name, I allow the work to move freely into the world. It becomes less about “Ted Barr” and more about the dialogue between image and viewer. In this way, each painting becomes both intimate and universal—an extension of my own inner life, yet at the same time a fragment in the vast human story we are all writing together.
My symbol speaks about transmission, not about the artist’s identity, or possession, but about what flows through. And perhaps, in this refusal to sign in the usual way, I hope to remind others that behind every brushstroke is not only an “I,” but also a “we.”
The name fades.
The symbol remains.
Not signature,
seed.
Not ownership,
offering.
No name.
You trained for years under Shlomo Tzafrir and carry with you his metaphor of the painter as a fisherman always ready with rod in hand. How has this discipline of readiness influenced your relationship with inspiration and improvisation, and do you believe art emerges more from preparedness or from surrender?
Shlomo Tzafrir was a great artist, though a deeply troubled human being. He called me “the clerk,” he humiliated me in front of friends, he shouted, cursed, and broke me down. Yet week after week, year after year, I returned to his Old Jaffa studio, until he died in 2002. People asked why I endured such misery, and I answered simply: I felt the greatness. His knowledge was vast, his discipline relentless—Prussian in style, uncompromising in its rigor.
Once I told him, “I want to paint galaxies and stars.” He looked at me and said, “No galaxies, no stars. You cannot leap to the heavens before you know the ground.” In retrospect, he was right. Without roots, there are no branches. Without discipline, creativity withers.
From him, I learned that inspiration is not a lightning bolt that strikes at random, but a guest we prepare for. Canvases must be stretched, pigments mixed, layers laid down patiently. The fisherman does not know when the fish will bite the bait; his rod must always be ready. Otherwise, as Shlomo used to say, “you may encounter the finest fish, but without a net, it will vanish.”
So, does art emerge from preparedness or from surrender? For me, it is both. Preparedness sharpens the tools, steadies the hand, and builds the vessel. Surrender opens the door to what is unexpected, what cannot be taught. The fisherman waits with discipline, but when the line suddenly tugs, he must also surrender to the mystery of what the water offers.
The canvas is the same. I prepare, I labour, I discipline myself endlessly—but in the moment of creation, I let go. The colors flow, the layers unfold, and something greater than me takes its course.
Having lived through the rigidity of military command and later embraced the fluidity of artistic freedom, your biography is itself a study in contrasts. How has your military background shaped your commitment to spontaneity in art, and do you sense that this paradox deepens the intensity of your work?
I spent years in the military, a world defined by hierarchy, precision, and discipline. Orders were given, and they were to be carried out without hesitation. Life and death often depended on obedience. That rigidity left a deep imprint on me, and for a long time it felt like a weight, a confinement of spirit.
When I later stepped into the realm of art, I discovered its opposite: freedom, unpredictability, the embrace of what cannot be planned. At first, it felt almost impossible to release control after years of command. Yet slowly I understood that the discipline I had once resented became the very foundation that allowed me to surrender. Without the structure carved into me by the military, I might not have had the courage to step into the unknown of the canvas.
This paradox—rigidity giving birth to fluidity—has become the heartbeat of my work. In the army, I learned control; in the studio, I learned release. Together they create tension waves, a dynamic energy that deepens the intensity of each artwork.
Spontaneity is not chaos—it is freedom resting upon discipline. My years of command taught me the value of readiness, of structure. My years of art taught me to trust the moment, to let go of certainty. Between the two, I found the essence of FLY: to prepare with devotion, and then leap to the unknown.
In your book FLY: Have Magic in Your Life, you describe art as a miracle that unfolds in process, not in outcome. How do you define “miracle” in an age so dominated by technology and speed, and how do you envision your FLY philosophy continuing to evolve in digital realms such as NFTs and online creative communities?
For me, the greatest miracle is that I am alive. There were moments in battle when my existence hung by a thread. Friends died near me, some in my arms. If a bullet had flown two centimetres differently, I would not be here to speak these words. Out of that survival rose a burning question: Why me? Why now? For what purpose was I given this life?
The search for those answers shaped the FLY philosophy, written in my books and articles, I try to share this essence in the FLY workshops, and in my art. It begins from the recognition that life itself is a miracle, and that creation—whether on canvas or in spirit—is an extension of that miracle.
In an age where speed and technology dominate, miracles may seem obscured, yet I believe they are needed now more than ever. The more digital the world becomes, the greater our hunger will be for meaning, for presence, for true human connection. A blockchain cannot replace a heartbeat. An algorithm cannot replicate wonder. But digital realms can become vessels—if used with intention—for transmitting the essence of FLY.
I envision FLY unfolding in these spaces in many ways: NFTs not as speculative assets, but as digital talismans carrying the energy of transformation; virtual galleries where people can wander not only through images, but through layered experiences of sound, movement, and meditation; online communities where the FLY principle—embrace the unexpected—guides collaborative creation across continents. In such spaces, art is no longer bound by geography, but becomes a shared ritual of presence, a way to awaken the hidden child within us all.
Life is a miracle,
Every brushstroke
is a way of saying thank you.