Rus Khasanov’s mesmerising paint droplets appear effortless — but take months of work

Rus Khasanov began creating bubbles from paint after watching droplets of soy sauce form tiny spheres at the bottom of his saucepan, when mixed with olive oil.

He’s since used the technique to create work for brands such as IBM, Adobe, and MAC Cosmetics. Each free-flowing wave and form is the culmination of hours spent ironing out technicalities or perfecting mixtures.

His latest project, Unity, took four months of intense work, over which time Khasanov mastered how to merge two droplets of paint into one.

“In Unity, the merging of two bubbles may look simple,” Khasanov told The Calvert Journal. “But, there’s a lot of hard work and research, which you don’t see. Even after working with this technique for so long, getting a specific look or a precise movement can take several hours or even a few days of stubbornly searching for the right shot.”

Khasanov wants to keep pushing the seemingly effortless beauty of his bubble work to the next level. “I work with several techniques, but this is by far my most popular. With each new project I try to bring something new, to develop my style. If I come back to work with paint and bubbles, I have to have something new to show,” he says.

“The basic idea of my work is simple: beauty can be seen in everything.”