Ruslan

Djavadian discovered Ruslan as a new emigré in the Armenian community of southern California. The 10-year-old had been unaware of Bunker while still in Yerevan but took keen interest in works featured in Djavadian’s collection and developed a similar formal and gestural impulse. Ruslan’s earlier paintings, not surprisingly, are filled with youthful exuberance and bravado, making liberal – but notably sophisticated – use of drip and, in particular, spray, relating his painting to graffiti and street art. Spraying and dripping in Ruslan’s hands are as much calligraphy as physical gesture, notation rather than expression per se. Having reached chronological maturity, Ruslan now works with a certain deliberation, building increasingly developed compositional contexts for his mark-making. But that mark-making, and the energy it embodies, continue unabated, a skill and a flare now harnessed but not reined in.

Peter Frank

ruSlan kaSParyan

i Could not Go away before My MuSe left

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RUSLAN KASPARYAN is the youngest of the artists who followed in the footsteps of the Bunker Art Group collection of Sergei Djavadian. Ruslan was 10 years old, just arrived from Armenia, when his uncle took him to a private show of one of the Bunker Group's original members, Martin Petrosyan. “I had never seen anything like that," Ruslan says. "I loved Martin's sophisticated, whimsical drawings and asked my uncle to buy one of his works. However, it did not move me to paint myself." That changed when he saw the iconic Bunker Group show at Bergamot Art Station in 2000. "The energy of all those powerful artists together hit me like a tornado! Kiki's Bobo stared at me from the gallery walls. Sev's burned plastic assemblages radiated mysterious power. Lark's spontaneous avant-garde collages intrigued me. At that point I couldn't resist creating something myself.” Although Ruslan's mother and uncle bought him all the materials he needed to start painting, nobody explained to him how to do it. “I'd never held brushes in my hands and didn't want to use them. I felt myself to be an inventor and so my first painting tool was not a brush but a sheet of paper. I opened the back of an acrylic tube, sprayed color on the paper and then pressed the paper to the canvas. I looked at what happened with delight. From that moment I fell in love with making art. I ran home from school to start a new canvas. It was a new game for me in the beginning. Later I used those early attempts as backgrounds. "My second painting tool was a plastic straw which I had found in the house. I would fill it with water and blow the water

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out through it, blurring lines I had drawn on the canvas. I used cotton balls from my mom's make-up kit as wipes. These devices all created interesting and different effects." When Kiki and Sev first saw Ruslan's artworks they praised him and commented with astonishment, "Jackson Pollock's spirit has taken over you!” "I had never heard his name before,” laughs Ruslan, “I had never seen his art. It was before the widespread use of mobile phones and computers. So I told Uncle Sergei that I wanted to see Pollock's work in the San Francisco Art Museum. For the first time I saw Pollock's work and read about him; right away I said to my uncle. 'But he doesn't paint the same way I do! He sprays paint with his brush!'" Asked whether he was discouraged when he saw Pollock's artworks Ruslan answered, “No, I was even more determined to paint and find my own unique way in art.“ At some point Ruslan also tried to follow in Sev's path. “It was inspiring to paint with fire and after Sev showed me how to do it I took a gas burner and created a few artworks in his style. But this did not attract me.” Spiritually, however, Sev had a big influence on Ruslan's development as an artist.

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Ruslan asked his older friend, "How do you start your artwork? How do you know when you're finished?" Sev always answered him honestly and simply so that the young boy could understand. Sometimes Ruslan just listened to Sev and Kiki talk. “Whether they were working or chatting I experienced the powerful passion of their character. Soul was always a main character in their conversations. As far as they were concerned, without its presence there was was no art. “I also loved to watch Sev and Kiki at work – even creating alongside them. I was so excited and proud that they accepted me. Their energy fueled me and helped me to realize I had talent and my own style." Ruslan's early artworks were about 9x12 inches, his later works were as large as 4x6 feet. “I never left any painting unfinished! I went into a state of creative ecstasy and would not leave any work until I was 100 percent satisfied. I could not go away before my muse left,” he explains.

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At the age of 16 in 2007 Ruslan's devotion to art waned. “Other temptations and peer pressure took over, overshadowing painting. I studied a lot, started driving – and the girls were so pretty!” Asked why he choose the seemingly incongruous profession of deputy sheriff, Ruslan answers, “I always dreamed about being a James Bond type secret agent. When I was 10 I was still playing with toy soldiers and fireman as passionately as I was with acrylics and canvases. So when I needed to choose my profession I applied to the Los Angeles sherif's academy and now I've got a job I love. “Still," Ruslan admits, "I can't imagine life without painting. My first love was art. I remember and miss that feeling of victory inside my soul when I have finished a good artwork. If no one understood what I had achieved - that was not important. I always painted only for myself, but now I am happy when people also enjoy my art.”