Mark Rothko is a very famous, latvian-born american artist. He passed away in 1970, but his body of work is timeless. He is especially famous for his large, colorful paintings, in which color blocks blur into one another. Rothko's pieces are dominated by their color. Rothko himself recommended to hang the pieces in dark rooms and to gaze at them from a 45 cm distance - this would bring out the maximum in color, form and effect. However, he did not give many hints in terms of how to interpret his pieces. Instead, he believed that art works have to be mysterious. I thinkt that many of his pieces are especially significant because of their size. Some of his works are over three meters high. The impact of the blod colors is much greater because of the pieces size. Imagine to have such a work hanging at the back of a room?
I recently came across the work of German artist Patrick Gabler while walking around Berlin. I saw one of his pieces through the window of a gallery, and was immediately fascinated. I had never heard of Gabler before, but will always recognize his work if I see it in the future. This is so, because he has a very unique and original style: he uses indian ink on paper and draws lively, feather-like swearls, forming the shape of a perfect circle. When using ink to draw on paper, there is no option of correcting what has been drawn. If Gabler where using paint, he could go back and remove a line, or an error. Everything in Gabler's pieces was created at first try, and I think it is very couragous to use such materials that don't allow mistakes. I think what caught my eye was the contrast between the swirls he draws and the circle which they form. It seems as if the ink is moving, swiveling around, but it is always bound to the frame of the circle. Also, even though the piece is visually simple, the pieces still contains a lot of depth.
