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Fusionartists Group Exhibition

The most recent group exhibition of Fusionartists was held from May 9th through 29th at  Creative Art Center Gallery in Burbank, California. This group exhibition displayed creations of the Southern California Fusionartists
who have explored fusing the arts through engaging all senses. 

Exhibiting Fusionartists
Exhibiting Fusionartists gather together with Rassouli during the opening reception

Nine Fusionartists, from Santa Barbara to San Diego were featured in the show: Lydia Arbizo (Fallbrook), Bebe Brookman (San Diego), Haleh Davoudi (Burbank), Amber Goldhammer (Santa Monica), Aazam Irilian Santa Clarita), Zoya Krioukova (Santa Monica), Barbara Mcvey (San Diego), Isabelle Ribuot (Santa Barbara), and Vida Shajie (Huntington Beach).

Reception

This group of exhibiting Fusionartists came together to share their creative process, art and souls’ visions, translated through vibrant colors and forms dancing onto the canvas. Their purpose is to promote and develop the power of creativity that lives within every person and is always ready to be expressed.

Following are some more images from the opening reception

Opening
                                    Reception


Excerpts from the book:
Fusionart,
Creative Expression through the Heart

by Rassouli

 

"Fusionartists create, they strive to develop the feeling of the spirit taking and guiding them as if they are masters of love at work. They feel the spirit move beyond the body, to the face of love.

In a way, Fusionartists feel connected enough to claim that they are more lovers than painters, and the true concepts of their artworks dwell beyond the veil of the visual images. The primary purpose of their creativity is not to sell paintings, for they are moved by a different, deeper, and more interior call spurred on by the spirit of love. It is a beautiful alignment with the light and joy of a meaningful life. Through painting with each other, Fusionartists discover what a powerful attraction Love can be."


The experience of attending a
One-Day Painting Retreat
as told by someone who had never painted before.

by Parviz Nafari


Not too far north of Ventura Blvd. On Balboa Blvd. In Encino sits a two story building as Encino Community Center. Once every month, on the second Saturday, a few show up to treat themselves to a day of painting and experiencing the art of living. They arrive with their bags of tools, brushes and paints in one hand while holding the wooden edge of a canvas that soon would turn into reflections of their hearts.  

Rassouli arranged us in a circle and began the day with a little talk about Attar and his Conference of the Birds and planted the seeds of metaphors on the tips of our fingers and wished us a moment of inspiration and a day of growing souls. I left the room with the tips of my fingers tingling with the vibrations of an unknown sensation and found myself a little spot among my fellow travelers.

I had not painted before and as I recall the moment in my mind’s eye I am certain that this went unnoticed by the way that I set the easel, put my canvas on it, and began to ornate the borrowed table with the tubes of brilliant acrylics that I had brought with me. I was standing on top of the order of the fellow participants, looking down the two rows of easels, and began moving my body to the music that was suddenly in the air and staring at the white canvas in front of me. I went to work and did not come back until the music stopped and lunch was announced. Couple hours had passed and before my earthy eyes opened again I turned the third eye to the magic that was flying in that hallway. There I saw Psyche and Eros hovering in the air and whispering joy in every heart. We were all awake and standing back a step or two to see what had grown out of those blessed fingertips. Then I looked down at my feet and the ground they were standing on. There I saw my divine land under me and knew that for arriving there I did not have to go the Ganges River or Jerusalem;  Encino does just fine.

The ritual continued through sharing bread and water and ended with an intimate discussion of our works. After a second going in the studio, I found myself sitting in a circle again inside the room where we were initiated in the morning and discussing our works of art. One by one we took turns and told tails of our experiences. Words at his time do not cover the texture of the day in a coherent and concrete way. The colors of the works and the feel of the canvases were of the magical world of experience, not the realm of semantics. I am sitting in the middle of my living room now with the two canvas souvenirs that I have brought back with me, looking at them, and wondering about the possibilities of not only projecting more of my imagination onto a piece of cloth, but brushing out the rough edges of my mere existence with creative strokes of pure light.


retreat


The gift of Rassouli does not only lie in the strokes of his genius brush, it extends its offerings through genuine days like this where he steps away from his studio and creates a lively image of an atelier filled with bodies who thrive for a space to unleash their souls. Like Hermes he appears and disappears from one easel to another and guides the psyche away from the realm of intellect that often gets in the way of creative instincts and forwards it towards the light within. He makes a call and challenges you to do away from the rational thinking and dares you to travel the forgotten road of the symbolic images that you are born with, with no judgment, no expectations. He may transform a white canvas into a brilliant celebration of colors and images, like an alchemist turning copper into gold, but he does more wonders in dissolving space into time and making both disappear in the middle of a life that is rapidly being sacrificed for modernity and the outcome, and unwraps the masks of daily living to create a different religious experience that links back the soul to where it comes from, our true nature, born from mother earth and father universe.

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