Rothko and I: how his philosophy of color fundamentally changed my work

There's a moment I've never been able to fully explain to myself. I stood before a large Rothko at the MoMA in New York, a work I had seen countless times in books and online, and yet it was different than I expected. Not more impressive, not more beautiful in the classical sense. It was as if the work wasn't showing something but doing something. A color that moved without moving. A tension that was palpable before I had a word for it.

At that time, I was still searching for what I wanted to create. I painted, experimented, was fascinated by color but didn't quite know why. After that afternoon at the Stedelijk, I understood better. Not as a concept, but as a feeling. And that feeling has since been the common thread in everything I create, including the Ombre series that now forms the core of KOJO Art.

This is not an art-critical essay about Rothko. There are plenty of people who analyze his work better than I do. This is an attempt to describe what his philosophy has done to me, how it has shifted my view of color, composition, and the purpose of art, and why I believe that philosophy is as relevant to a contemporary interior as it is to a museum hall.

1. The First Encounter: Color That Feels

I grew up with the idea that art had to depict something. A landscape, a portrait, a story. Abstract art was something I intellectually accepted but didn't truly feel. Rothko changed that, but not in the way I expected.

What struck me was not his technique, not his composition, not the perfect proportions of his color fields. It was the fact that color had a direction. Red pulling upwards. Orange seemingly wanting to rise into the air. A warm yellow at the bottom that seemed to be the earth. Without showing a tree, a horizon, or a figure, the canvas spoke of up and down, heavy and light, warmth and longing.

That's when I understood that color is not decorative but informative. That a color doesn't say what something looks like, but how something feels. And that the difference between the two is the core of what abstract art can achieve.

Rothko once said he was interested in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom. Not in relationships between colors or compositional structure. Color was the vehicle, not the goal. That principle sounds simple, but it has far-reaching consequences for how one approaches a canvas.

It means that every color choice is a moral choice, almost. You don't choose what's beautiful, you choose what's true. And that question, what is true for this work, is more difficult than it seems.

2. What Rothko Taught Me About Intent

The biggest misunderstanding about Rothko, and about abstract art in general, is that it's easy. Painting blocks, putting colors next to each other, done. Anyone who takes the trouble to understand how Rothko worked sees something else: an artist who was obsessive and meticulous, who repeated the same composition dozens of times, who applied up to fifteen or more layers of paint before he was satisfied.

Simplicity was not a starting point. It was the result of a long process of omission.

That taught me more about painting than any technical manual. Not how to build a composition, but why you omit things. Every element you add distracts from the central feeling. A line, a shape, a texture that is too emphatic, leaves the viewer at the surface. Rothko wanted the viewer to go through it, not look at it.

In the Ombre series, I have fully embraced that logic. An ombre transition is, at first glance, simple: color A transitions into color B. But the question is always where that boundary lies. How wide is the transition? At what point does color A lose its identity and color B begin to become itself? Is the transition fast and dramatic, or slow and barely perceptible?

All these decisions determine whether a work has tension or calm, urgency or serenity. And they only become visible when you make them wrong.

The Logic of Layers

Rothko worked in thin, transparent layers. Not because he loved technique, but because he knew that saturated paint applied directly to canvas has a different quality than the same color built up in multiple layers. The first method gives color. The second gives light.

It works differently in acrylic paint than in oil paint, but the principle is the same. A color that is built up has a depth that you feel but cannot pinpoint. You look at it and think: there's something in that color. And that's right, there are three or four layers that together create something no single layer could have done alone.

That is the paradox of transparency in painting. You make something visible by hiding it.

3. Color as Language: How I Choose

One of the most liberating insights Rothko gave me is that color choice is not about what is beautiful or what is trending. It's about what a color does to the viewer at that specific moment, in that specific context.

Warm red attracts. It is active, present, wants something. Deep blue recedes. It is contemplative, quiet, invites in. Not because these are universal laws, but because color works this way in our perception. Rothko knew these mechanisms and consciously used them, not as a trick but as a language.

In the Ombre series, I translate that into transitions between such opposing forces. Pink to terracotta: softness that warms. Cool gray to warm beige: silence that opens up. Deep blue to lilac: contemplation that begins to whisper.

Every transition has a direction. Not visually, but emotionally. And the choice for that direction is always a choice about what I want someone to feel when they stand before the work. Not what they think, not what they understand. What they feel.

Why I Never Start with Trending Colors

I am regularly asked if I work with color palettes from interior stylists or color trends. The answer is no, but not because I find those trends annoying. It's because they ask the wrong question.

A trend color answers the question: what fits now? That question is legitimate for a cushion or a can of paint. But when you create a painting that someone wants on their wall for ten years, the question is different: what is timelessly true? And that is a question that color cannot answer based on a Pantone report.

Rothko never painted for his time. He painted for a human condition that knows no season. Tragedy, ecstasy, longing for connection. These emotions are not trendy. They are constant.

4. The Moment I Truly Understood What He Meant

There's a piece in my studio I've never sold. Not because I didn't want to, but because one evening, while working on it, I felt something I hadn't expected. A color field of warm terracotta slowly transitioning into an almost grayish pink, with a moment of pure orange barely a centimeter wide in between.

At that moment, in that thin strip of orange, was all the light of the evening sun. Not as a reference. Not because I wanted to paint the evening sun. But because the colors were chosen and applied in such a way that they activated precisely that feeling.

I then understood what Rothko meant by his famous statement that people who weep before his works are having the same religious experience he had while painting. It's not about identification with an image. It's about resonance with a feeling. And that feeling doesn't need a name.

That work still hangs in my studio. It reminds me why I do this.

5. Rothko's Refusal and What I Learned From It

In 1958, Rothko was commissioned to create murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York, one of the most exclusive eateries of its time. He worked on the series for months, creating dark, intense works, and ultimately withdrew.

His reason: he refused to let his art become decoration for rich people who didn't look at it.

That decision has always fascinated me, not as a romantic gesture but as an artist's logic. He understood that context changes the work. A painting in a restaurant is a different object than the same painting in a chapel. Not visually, but functionally. And if the function undermines the meaning, the work is no longer what it was.

I think of that when people ask if my work is also available as a loose print, as a poster on thin paper, cheap and fast. The answer is no, but not out of pride. It's because I know that a color transition in a high-quality print on sturdy paper or canvas gives a different experience than the same image on poster board. The quality of the medium changes how the color lands. And if the color doesn't land well, the work doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

Rothko's refusal was an act of integrity toward his work. That's a standard I try to uphold, even when it's sometimes less commercially obvious.

6. Color Field Painting in a Modern Interior: More Than Aesthetics

There's a reason why Rothko-inspired art works so well in modern interiors. It's not because the colors are beautiful, although they are. It's because color field art does something to a space that no other type of art does: it slows it down.

A room with a figurative painting asks you to look at something. A room with a color field work asks you to be something. The distinction sounds vague, but you notice it immediately when you walk into a room. The presence of a large, calm color field on the wall creates a different kind of silence than a blank wall. It's a conscious silence, an invited silence.

That's exactly what Rothko wanted. And it's precisely why I believe his philosophy is so relevant to the way people live today.

How the Ombre Series Translates This

The Ombre series was not created as a direct reference to Rothko. But it shares his core principles: color as the primary language, simplicity as the result of omission, and the conviction that a work should do something to the viewer, not just show something.

A soft pink-to-terracotta ombre above a sofa invites differently than a landscape painting. It doesn't ask for interpretation. It simply gives warmth. A cool blue-to-lilac ombre in a bedroom does nothing but bring calm to the space. Not as therapy, but as a presence.

That is the practical translation of Rothko's philosophy into a contemporary living context. Not as imitation, but as a continuation of the same question: what does color do to a person?

7. What I Still Learn From Him

Rothko died in 1970. His work is now more than fifty years old. And yet there is no single work of his that I find dated. That is extraordinarily rare in art history.

The reason, I think, is that he never painted about his time. He painted about the human condition, and that doesn't change. Tragedy and ecstasy are not cultural constructs. They are biological, neural, fundamental.

What I still learn from him, every time I see his work or read his words, is that precision and simplicity are not the same as minimalism. Rothko was not minimalistic in his intent. He was maximal in his intent and minimalistic in his means. That is a completely different starting point.

In my own work, I try to find that balance. Not to do as little as possible, but to use as little as possible to achieve as much as possible. Every layer of paint must be there. Every color choice must be right. But nothing needs to be explained.

That is the highest thing I learned from Rothko. Not a technique. A standard.

Conclusion: Color as an Act

Rothko inspired me not because he painted beautifully. He inspired me because he knew exactly why he painted, and that why was present in every work. Without explanation, without a title that explained what you should feel, without a figure to show you the way.

Color alone. And yet everything.

That is the standard I set for myself in the Ombre series and in all other works I create. Not every color needs drama. Not every work needs to overwhelm. But every work must be honest. A color I choose because it is beautiful is a lie. A color I choose because it is true is art.

Rothko knew that. And I learn it, every day anew, at the easel.

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