Emulation/Inspiration Assignment

After a long and hard journey to find the perfect piece to emulate, I have finally discovered my inspiration. I plan to imitate Mark Rothko's abstract expressionism pieces through photography. I feel a personal connection to Rothko because of the fact that he attended Lincoln High School in 1921. I wanted to make sure I was doing something different and original and wanted to stay away from still lifes and portrait emulations. I have been really attracted to textural pieces lately and so I have decided to stick to my central theme in my emulation while still bringing Rothko's design to life. All of his paintings tend to be three horizontally central colors on a vertical canvas. I plan to paint vibrant backgrounds of canvas or wood, hoping that I can copy his style and brush strokes. For the two different horizontal colors, I have decided to use seeds/spices/nuts and form them into Rothko's appropriate design. I worked with spices earlier this month as an independent study (see blog) but I could never decided what to do with them once photographed. I will keep those images on this blog but I am still interested in working with the textures of spices, nuts, seeds, etc. I haven't decided if I am going to shoot these digitally or with color film yet. I will post my process and final outcome later on.

Mark Rothko 1903-1970