Rothko Remixed

"No.2 (After Rothko)" Oil on Canvas, 36 X 48".

It pulses with a strange power, like a good Rothko should. But, of course, it is only a Williams, so the emotion is mine. I've been more than a little frustrated this last week over the progress of my (usual) literal oils, and so, for a needed change, I decided to scratch a log-standing itch by duplicating Mark Rothko's style in a proper big abstract canvas.

Spotlighting brings out a bit of the meditative power... . Lighting was super-critical to Uncle Mark, and you can see why by comparing the above two photos.

A bit small by normal Rothko standards, but big enough to overwhelm my meager studio infrastructure.

And yet, strangely enough, it does not overwhelm my meager apartment walls. But it does create a palpable "presence" in the room. I can feel it even when my back is turned. It is as Rothko would have wished. I distinctly remember my first, and only, experience with an original Rothko at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, which was also my first real experience with abstract art. I came away that day with a book on Renoir, stoked to have seen several Impressionist paintings. But I've long since forgotten Renoir and the Impressionists. Yet Rothko has always been THERE in my subconscious, smoldering away like a burning root, waiting to set a whole forest on fire.


I have duplicated his actual working methods fairly closely, using multiple overlapping layers of radically thinned-out paint and attempted to keep my brushwork and gestures Rothko-esque. My only departure, in fact, is that I have used my 3 Colour System, but with Manganese Blue, rather than the usual Winsor Blue which I use most frequently now.

Not sure where my art is heading after this, but it looks set to be an interesting ride. I feel at a cross-roads. I have created something today that radiates emotion, and that is what I've been after all along.

As an important, closely related footnote, yesterday I discovered the website of Edward Epp, and been kinda blown away with it. He reminds me of Deibenkorn and deStael combined, both of whom I love. His output is within the European and Abstract Expressionist vein, but he paints my Province and my country.

Maybe that is the kind of direction I need to go in; the direction I started on with "Freighter" back in '07. Epp has been tackling that subject, too, I see... .

So for lunch: bagel and cream cheese with lox. Part of the traditional Jewish diet. Thinking of you, Uncle Mark.