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 His
son has got him covered. System of a Down's artist of choice is Vartan Malakian,
the guitarist's dad.
On the walls of a quiet Spanish-style house in suburban
Glendale hang two paintings that, although largely unknown to art critics, are
million-sellers.
Titled "Mezmerize" and "Hypnotize," the works are the source images for the
covers of two albums released in 2005 by the hard-rock band System of a Down.
The originals might constitute an odd choice of home dιcor for Vartan and Zepur
Malakian except that Vartan, 59, is the artist who created them, and the
couple's son, Daron, is System's guitarist, co-vocalist and principal tunesmith.
The attention the elder Malakian has garnered from the album covers has helped
revitalize an artistic career that was on hiatus for almost two decades after he
emigrated to America. Reproductions of "Mezmerize" and "Hypnotize" are selling
briskly on the Internet, thanks in part to System's albums, with the same
titles, having sold 1.7 million and 1 million copies, respectively.
The original artworks 4 feet by 3 feet by 5 inches deep possess a heft that
is not readily apparent on the album covers. The layered "Mezmerize" is composed
of multiple sheets of semi-transparent painted gels and chrome vinyl separated
by two panes of plexiglass. Malakian is pleased by its effect: "Do you see how
it moves, if you walk with the picture?"
Despite the labor-intensive techniques in producing three-dimensional work,
Malakian says he likes to keep his approach simple.
"I like to be like a village person," he says. "When your mind comes into it,
there is always a 'yes/no,' 'do it/don't do it' fear in your brain, so I prefer
to just work with feeling and keep it simple like a village person might."
But a villager he is not. Malakian was reared in the third largest city in a
vast country with a violent and complicated history: Iraq. An Armenian Christian
born in Mosul in 1947, Malakian recalls the times before the rise of the Sunni
Arab-nationalist Baath Party as more tolerant of religious and ethnic
minorities.
While still a child, Malakian decided to devote himself to celebrating the
country's rich culture by pursuing art.
"I never played outside with the kids," he says, laughing ruefully. "I was
always inside doing artwork." The hard work paid off quickly. "My older sister
was a math teacher, and her friends, the other teachers, used to buy my art when
I was like 10 or 11 years old."
By the time he was a young adult, Malakian had many exhibitions in Iraq, but his
greatest professional success came when he channeled his knack for art onto a
dance-floor canvas.
In 1968, Malakian became head choreographer of Iraq's national dance troupe.
Though expert Russian ballet teachers helped him train his dancers, Malakian
once again took his principal cues from the Iraqi countryside.
"I used to go to the villages to see how village people dance, how they dress,
how they eat. Then I [arranged] the choreography so it gives the feeling about
the village."
Malakian's indigenous dance style was a hit, but the good times were not to
last. Though Ahmed Hassan Bakr was president at the time, a certain power-hungry
vice president began exerting a dark influence on Malakian's work.
"When Saddam [Hussein] came to regime, he forced me to do my choreography to
serve his Baath group," Malakian says. "Saddam wanted me to make war dance, to
make revolutionary dance, dance to serve his party. That is not my style, so I
said, 'Bye-bye.' "
After fleeing the increasingly repressive regime in late 1973, Malakian remained
in Beirut just long enough to rendezvous with and marry his sweetheart, Zepur
an erstwhile sculptor he affectionately refers to as "Zepi" and after securing
the sponsorship of an American church group, the couple immigrated to the United
States, where their only child, Daron, was born in 1975.
The artist and his wife had little more than the clothes on their backs when
they settled in Hollywood. Unable to impart his traditional choreography to a
new generation of dancers during a one-year teaching stint at Glendale College,
Malakian instead slogged through a string of low-paying jobs to keep his family
fed: a Neiman Marcus presser, a gas station attendant, a lunch truck caterer.
Finally, in 1993, after saving enough money to open a small gallery and antique
shop, Arka, in Glendale, Malakian began to paint again in earnest.
"I sold more than a hundred of my paintings," he says proudly, noting that the
nature of his clientele was encouraging. "Most of the buyers were artists."
It was another artist, not coincidentally, who gave Malakian his biggest break.
In 2002, after tallying his share of the quintuple-platinum receipts of System
of a Down's 2001 breakthrough album, "Toxicity," son Daron dropped a welcome
bombshell: "He said, 'Dad, you tried your best with me. You influenced me to be
a good musician, a good artist. Now it's my turn to help you. I want you to stay
home and do just artwork.' Then he bought me this house."
Making the most of the windfall, Malakian entered into his most prolific period
in decades. In addition to creating the cover art for System's "Mezmerize" and
"Hypnotize" albums and subsequent single releases like "BYOB" and "Lonely Day"
he produced a slew of new paintings, mosaics and multimedia works. Some,
including "Mezmerize," are on display at the Harvest Gallery, 938 N. Brand
Blvd., in Glendale through Tuesday.
The bittersweet side of his success is evident in Malakian's latest work, much
of which was inspired by the war in Iraq. "I have family in Iraq. They don't
leave the house. Always they expect some bomb and they die it happened in
front of my sister's house!"
Still, he refuses to let war dominate his work. "I want more to do artwork about
beautiful things, about life ... how it's nice," he says wistfully. "We are not
going to be born again. We have to live in peace and love each other. That's
what I want to express in my new paintings."
By Liam Gowing /
The Times
FrontPage photo by Gary Friedman
Inside photo by Vartan Yousoufian
Check
www.vartanmalakian.com for more info about the artist.
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