Fusionartist, Mystic
Painter and Author
By
Kerri Blackstone
Gazing
at any of Fusionartist
Rassouli’s
creative works provides a glimpse
into the mystic loving eye with
which he looks at the world.
Rassouli has been a celebrated and
innovative painter since childhood
who later trained as an architect.
Born in Isfahan, Iran, and currently
living in Southern California,
Rassouli has developed an artistic
style known as Fusionart.
He feels this art form is an
expression of cosmic unity, a coming
together of mysticism and artistic
expression.
The
development of Fusionart
has been his entire life’s work,
initiated in his childhood
influenced by the historic and
gorgeous home he grew up in, a
mystic uncle and hours watching the
whirling dervishes spin. Fusionart
and his paintings blur the line
between dream and reality –
intentionally, since Rassouli sees
the two as coexisting.
Rassouli
is a prolific artist who has exhibited
in solo and group shows worldwide. His
work has appeared in and on the covers
of a long list of publications and the
Agape International Spiritual Center
has showcased his paintings. Inspirations of the
Heart is his most recent
book; it contains a fusion of Rassouli’s
evocative art with Reverend Michael
Bernard Beckwith’s meditative musings.
Rassouli also creates murals in public
space and one of his more recent,
titled Angel of Unity, can be seen by
people walking at the ocean end of
Washington Avenue in Venice. The
Angel, like many of the women Rassouli
paints, is radiant, flowing, like the
breath of the cosmos herself.
Understanding
his view on life, love and painting may
come best from his own words. He started
his interview with Los Angeles
magazine by talking about his painting
Eternal Sun.
Rassouli
Rassouli: Scientists
were male so they call it the Big Bang.
But what does Big Bang mean? Somebody
hit something and a Big Bang happened?
The truth is that it was a Big Birth. It
was the divine feminine power that gave
birth to the universe. We have the
masculine power and we have the feminine
power and they’re in complete balance.
It’s just like darkness and light.
They’re completely opposite of each
other and they coexist. Life is the
union of opposites.
Kerri
Blackstone: Do
problems and chaos come to be because
the powers are out of balance?
Rassouli: Chaos
and problems are judgments. The truth
is the chaos, problems, potential –
all of this is one. The union of
opposites. Is a sunset beautiful? Is a
sunset ugly? A sunset is a sunset.
It’s the way we see it that makes it
beautiful or ugly. If you were to be
executed at sunset, the sunset would
be ugly to you. Why does the sun
shine? It doesn’t have any reason. We
must accept that the darkness and the
light co-exist. One cannot destroy
each other.
KB:
Sometimes it feels like we have an
obligation to fight against the
darkness. What do you say to people who feel that
accepting something, maybe a bad
thing, is the same as giving
in to it?
R: There
are two ways of fighting. One is to
retaliate; the other is to prevent the
attack. To prevent is absolutely
necessary which means we have to
become enough to face that opposition.
If I’m mad at somebody because they
destroyed something that I had, then
I’m going to be attacking them out of
retaliation. That is what is not
right.
KB: By
attacking out of retaliation, we’re
just causing more hate and anger
instead of trying to solve the
problem?
R: Right.
Instead I develop myself so that I’m
able to face it. I’m working on a book
that is about how we can become
empowered through the opposition. I
talk about the power of limits. We
think limits limit us but it’s the
limits that make an artist begin to
express herself.
KB: When
we’re given limits – creatively,
financially or personally – they force
us to become even more creative in
order to get around them and reach our
goals. Maybe those limits that seem
like a bad thing, actually are helping
us go further than we might have gone
without them?
R:
Exactly. It is the union of the two –
the body and the soul. The spirit and
the body have become one and that’s
how we create. Imagine if existence
were just gases – hydrogen, oxygen –
it wouldn’t have any meaning. The
union of these things together – the
outside and the inside – gives it
meaning, like a balloon. The air and
the skin of the balloon together make
the balloon. The air without the skin
would expand to infinity. The skin
without the air would be a piece of
rubber that we usually bury six feet
under. That air is the soul, infinite,
no limits. The skin is the body that
the soul goes into and gives it form.
KB: Do you
believe the soul is eternal? Is it
something that has always been there
and then it comes into our bodies for
a time to allow us to create in this
form and then returns to being
infinite?
R: Soul is
the flow. Soul is energy. It has no
identity, no personality. Imagine the
soul is a river that’s flowing.
Whatever’s inside that river isn’t
aware of anything; it’s just in the
flow. But then it comes into a little
brook and it ends up somewhere, like a
dead end. That part of the river that
is inside the brook is us. That part
of the river is not happy and it wants
to join the flow. If it has big high
rocks or mountains around it, it gets
trapped and can’t get back to the
river. If it doesn’t have any of
these, then it finds its way back.
KB: What
are the rocks and edges in our lives?
Fears, doubts and limits we put on
ourselves?
R: No,
those rocks and edges are our culture,
heritage, upbringing, education, what
our mothers taught us from childhood,
what teachers tell us, what society
tells us, what our religion tells us,
what everything tells us. The more
we’ve learned, the more difficult it
is for our spirit to get back to the
flow.
KB: That
makes it sound like learning is a bad
thing that keeps us separated from our
true nature.
R: Learning
is not a bad thing or a good thing.
Education is one thing, training is
something else. Learning (or
education) is to unify us. You and I
read the same book, 30,000 people read
the same book, three
million people see the same movie or
listen to the same lecture. That’s one
side. On the other side, training is
to individualize us.
KB: By
training, do you mean doing what we
need to do to prepare for our
profession?
R: I mean
doing what you love to do. Doing what
you love to do has nothing to do with
your education. You might love to cook
or you might love to meditate.
Developing yourself to do what you
love, developing your deepest self –
that’s the training. Education and
training have to work together for us,
for the individual.
KB: A lot of people
today feel stuck inside a consumer
lifestyle where we’re convinced we
need to spend our lives working for
the things that will supposedly make
us happy. They follow that path but at
the end of the day, there’s no meaning
to it. How do we get away from that?
R: We have
to accept it. Accepting it means
bringing it into our life. We adjust
ourselves to the night. We’re not
saying night is bad or night is good.
We accept it and we deal with it. I
could yell and scream at night
forever, “Why are you here? I’m going
to destroy you! I’m going to blow you
up!” I could do that but the truth is
we have to live with night. This is
not a matter of destroying day or
night. It’s a matter of living with
both. Yoga is finding a balance
between my physical being and my
spiritual being.
KB: Do you
feel like you were born an artist or
is it something that developed as you
were going through your training and
education?
R: First,
let’s define artist. I don’t consider
myself a painter. I am an artist. Art
is a verb. Art is bringing the two
together. Art is about union. So when
you say ‘I’m art-ing’,
that’s bringing the two hearts
together.
Imagine
a necklace of pearls. Each pearl has
two holes for the string to go
through. This pearl is called heart.
If my pearl does not have a hole, the
string is not going to go through it.
The string that goes through these
pearls is what we call love. Some call
it God. Michael Beckwith calls it
Agape, which is a Latin word for
unconditional love.
Now if
there is only one hole, the string is
going to go in there and stop. There’s
got to be another hole for that string
to come out in order for the necklace
to be formed – the union of the pearls
– which is what I’m calling
‘heart-storming’. The medium that does
that is God or love or Yoga – which
are all the same.
KB: Are we
all born with two holes in our pearl?
If so, what causes one of both of
these holes to get blocked along the
way?
R: We’re
all born with the two holes but very
quickly we begin to lose the child
within us. We begin to not use the
holes so they get rusty and pretty
soon, they close.
It’s the
same as the blood that goes through
the heart. The mystics call it the
wine. That wine or blood goes into
your heart, gets purified and comes
back out. The same thing happens with
love. We’ve got to put love into
everything we do in order to
experience that pure oneness, to
develop that unity, to be part of that
Yoga. Just like this magazine which is
called Los Angeles Yoga: the union of
the angels.
KB: Why do
you think some people are able to
realize that God is inside of them,
when most spend their time searching
for God in the external world or some
other dimension?
R: Because
I am a mystic, I know that God is
inside of me. Whenever I need to ask
something, I ask my heart, “What do I
do next” and my heart tells me what to
do. Nobody’s heart is ever wrong. Even
when it seems to be going the wrong
way, it is going the right way.
KB: How are
we able to tell the difference between
what our heart and what our rational
mind is telling us based on what we’ve
learned and been conditioned to
believe?
R: The
soul is on Earth to enjoy it. The tree
is doing its treeing because it enjoys
treeing. The roots are rooting, the
branches are branching, the fruit is
fruiting. They’re not thinking about
anything but loving what they’re
doing.
The tree
is making love all the time – whether
its winter or fall, it is still making
love. ‘God-ing’
is what we call love. To ‘God’ means
loving because that’s what God does –
loves. We are created to enjoy every
moment, to be the creator, to love.
God has made us to be God. The whole
idea for us is to love.
We have
this rational mind for the protection
of the body, that’s it. Without the
rational mind, I might walk into the
street and a car hits me, or I walk
into a wall or I go outside in the
winter and catch cold. My soul doesn’t
need protection – my soul is connected
with my heart. If my mind wants to
decide for my heart, it’s going to be
wrong. And if my heart wants to decide
for my mind, it’s going to be wrong as
well. The two have to work together.
On
Sundays early in the morning, I climb
the mountain in the dark, sit on the
peak of the mountain and wait for the
sun to come. I love walking in the
dark because mystery is the essence of
creativity. Without mystery there
would not be artists or scientists –
it’s the mystery that attracts us. I
watch the transition from darkness to
light, from cool to warm, from blues
into yellows. I watch and I meditate.
I am asking the Sun, my creator to
wash away all the darkness inside me,
whatever has captured me this last
week. I go through my complete Yoga,
knowing I’m being cleansed in the
process. I have become one with
everybody and everything – mountains,
sea, sky.
In that waiting for the beloved to
appear, I experience true union. That
is the unity that prayer brings to us;
that Yoga brings to us. Then I come to
my studio and begin to paint.
KB: Do you
feel you’re still in a trance and/or
meditative state when you come down
from the mountain and start painting?
How do you keep yourself into that
state?
R: Oh yes.
But it depends. Whenever I feel good,
I paint and whenever I paint, I feel
good. I don’t paint to make a
painting. When I paint I’m dancing.
And as I’m playing with paint, I begin
to fly. I’m conscious, but I’m not
aware of what I’m doing.
That’s
the problem with people who use
external means of getting high. When
you’re using internal means of being
high, it’s empowering, and the next
morning you can build up on it. If I
drink and get drunk, in those moments
it feels good but next morning it’s a
problem because I’m down again. If I
get high from my inner being, the next
morning I build up on it and get even
higher. Every painting I do is in a
different zone and at a different
level than the one before. Everything
keeps building up so I’m transforming
constantly.This
is how you can judge a work of an
artist. Does the work come from a
divine power or someone who is under
an external influence?
KB: It’s
fairly common for people, especially
in the arts and music, to try to reach
that trance state through the external
influence of drugs and alcohol. How
can they begin to find inspiration
from an internal high instead?
R:
Again, it’s the relationship of
creation and destruction. The
creative one puts things out there
and the editor is the destroyer who
takes things away. If the editor
leads the way, you’re in trouble
because it shuts off the process
before it even starts. This happens
with many artists, they start
editing themselves before they begin
to create. It took Brahms
twenty-five years to compose his
first symphony because he was
comparing himself to Beethoven.
KB: How do we keep
our editor on the sidelines until it’s
his time to help?
R: Leila,
creation and destruction, is going to
take place at the same time. If you
watch me paint, I’m creating at the
canvas, and then I stand back and the
editor can see, then I’m back at the
canvas and painting. I’m in the trance
state this whole time and the editor
is well trained to do his job. It’s
like when you’re driving. Your driver
is your editor. You’re in your own
world, putting lipstick on, talking on
the phone, thinking about your day,
but the driver is your editor. The
editor knows how to handle things
without hurting the creative being.
Let’s say I take the pink brush and
put some pink paint here, at the same
time, I’m destroying the blue paint
that was underneath. I am destroying
and creating at the same time.
KB: When you’re in
the trance, creating and editing a
painting, do you have an idea or
vision in your mind of what the end
product will be?
R: Not at all. Actually,
when I’m painting, a lot of times, I will
turn the canvas upside down and work from
that perspective and the painting becomes
something totally different. I do this
with students at my workshops and they see
that what they were painting was an entire
landscape that they didn’t even see.
KB: When
you teach, how do you help people get
themselves into the trance state so
that their creative energy can start
to flow?
R: It’s
always different. Sometimes, I have
them close their eyes, get close to
the canvas and paint without looking
at the canvass. I tell them, “If you
open your eyes, your painting is
finished.” Once it’s done, they can
open your eyes and find out that it is
completely different that it was in
their mind. Now the editor starts
comparing what you’ve done to what you
had in mind and now the creator can
stand with the editor and really see
what is there.
I often
see things that I didn’t know I had
painted, they just come through. I’ll
see for example the shape of an old
man leaning over with a book in front
of him and he seems to be writing on
something. Now when my editor sees
that, he can eliminate the parts that
don’t belong to that, the parts around
it, so that what came through me can
really pop out. This is the process of
creating.
KB: I read
a quote you gave that said “I’m not
painting something abstract, but
something more real than what we see.”
Do you mean that what we see is an
illusion and, if so, is there any
value in it?
R: Reality
is only one manifestation of the
truth. For example: a bird and flight.
The bird is only a manifestation of
flight. Flight never dies but the bird
dies. Truth is immortal but reality is
mortal. What I paint is the truth. Not
the changing reality. What you see in
my paintings is not abstraction.
Abstraction is not dealing with the
reality or the truth or anything. It
is innocent painting – I’ll just paint
and people will see whatever they want
to see in it. It’s their thing and
whatever they want to do with it is
there business. That’s why painters
who paint abstraction don’t usually
title their paintings. My paintings
are about the truth beyond the
reality.
Many
students and artists follow my school
of teaching and we have retreats and
workshops. It’s all about play and I
get them in the zone to play. At the
end everybody discusses their process
so the others can benefit from it.
It’s a safe zone for people to play
and it’s a place of healing for
everyone. No one is judging.
KB: Would
you consider your workshops and
retreats to be a form of art therapy?
R: With art
therapy you are trying to open up the
mind and here I am trying to open up
the heart. I am a vehicle that allows
people to take the journey of
transformation. I explain that they’re
doing the act of creativity which is
‘God-ing’.
What do they have in the dictionary
instead of ‘God-ing’?
Love. You want to be giving love. That
is the creative process. I gave them
pastels and paper and told them to do
the act of love-making with the paper
and the chalk. I told them not to
create anything like anything else.
Create like God. Play like God. That’s
how you can expand your love. And they
got it.
KB: If you
could share one piece of advice with
people who want to follow their heart,
what would it be?
R: Know
that you are greater than even you
think you are. You were the winner
among infinite numbers of creatures in
that drop of sperm. You were the
messiah among millions.
So
act upon it. Whatever you do, be the
best at it. Rumi says, “Footprints lead
you to the shore of the sea, from there
on no trace remains.” Learn from others,
so you can find a way to get to the
shore of the sea. There you are on your
own. Dive in. And experience that
infinite sea.
A recent
interviews with Rassouli |
A Candid
Interview with Artist Rassouli
By Lauren Ashley Golt
HOME MAGAZINE
Southern
California is privy to an artist whom
is both unique and inspiring. Using a
skillful technique, known as Fusionart,
Rassouli creates works of art that
reflect spiritual experience by
expressing images from his
subconscious. Fusionart,
a fusion of mysticism and European
painting technology, is a style that
Rassouli himself has created,
registered and currently teaches. With
smooth strokes, bright colors and a
consistent theme of elegance,
Rassouli, uses his creative talent to
illustrate his spirituality.
When asked
what inspires him, Rassouli says,
“Mystics such as Hafiz and Rumi, artists
like Gustave
Moreau, William Blake and Jean-Honore’
Fragonard. I do not start a painting
with sketches, I do not paint on
location and I do not work from photos.
Instead, many mornings, before the dawn,
I climb a mountain to its peak. There,
sitting in solitude, I observe rising of
the sun. I watch plants open their
leaves, buds tear up their dresses and
the birds sing to the arrival of their
creator. There is an interconnected
serenity that allows all creatures to
experience the divine unity. Having felt
that creative energy, I rush to my
studio, dip my brush into paint, and let
it move freely on canvas.”
Born in
Isfahan, Rassouli came to the United
States as a teenager where he studied
painting and architecture at the
University of New Mexico. Now Rassouli
has participated in hundreds of solo and
collective exhibits, and has created
several large public murals
including two in Los Angeles and
one in Venice. The mural in
Venice, entitled “Angel of Unity,” is
120 feet wide by 45 feet high and is
viewed daily by thousands of California
residents and visitors.
Rassouli not
only uses his craft to express himself but
he also teaches Fusionart
at universities and colleges, special
seminars and conferences on creativity and
mysticism and holds occasional full day
and weekend painting retreats all over the
globe. Rita Roberts took one of his
classes and says, “Aside from being
extremely talented, he is a fascinating
individual. I’ve taken one of his
painting workshops and he actually teaches
his students to allow spirit to paint
through them and much to our amazement,
when we do this, human images often appear
in the paintings without you having
deliberately painted them. You
really have to experience it!”
Currently
Rassouli is developing various retreat and
seminar programs to focus on bringing out
the creative child within. He believes,
“Once people realize how creative they
are, they will begin to use that in their
everyday life in order to bring them
balance and more joy “. During the fall
and winter, Rassouli will be working on a
coffee-table book that features his
artwork along with inspirational messages.
He will also hold various art classes as
well as full day and weekend painting
retreats.
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