Mark Rothko

When Rothko started his colour field paintings they were radiant and bright progressively getting darker as he continued to progress to the point where he was producing black/grey and just black paintings at which point he committed suicide!! So moral of story......Don't paint Black!!

But to the point, Rothko's paintings are very intense...huge fields of colour which draw you into them....ie audience engagement. He built up layers of thin paint which evolved into a luminous vision on huge canvasses.


"Rothko, however, generally avoided explaining the content of his work, believing that the abstract image could directly represent the fundamental nature of human drama. For him, eschewing
representation permitted greater clarity, the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea and between the idea and the observer."

I think that last statement is useful in thinking about how we will display and engage an audience in our colour works.