The starting point of Lela Rose’s Pre-Fall 2012 collection was the work of Clyfford Still. In the lookbook, models stand before a screen daubed with swathes of vibrant colors, a motif echoed ever so subtly in the collection’s vivid separates and cocktail dresses.

“You see a lot of the dripped paint and the prints that have jagged edges, or laces with jagged edges,” Rose told ARTINFO at her New York showroom. “I think that you can see the Clyfford Still inspiration in it, but in our own way.”

Such understated reinterpretations are par for the course for Rose. There are also notes of Gerhard Richter (whose scraped-paint canvases first inspired Rose in Fall 2011) in the form of a printed pair of pants and dresses. But the designer didn’t just appropriate the artist’s work — her team created Richter-inspired pieces on their own, putting the season’s colors on a canvas and scraping them à la the artist.

“I never know where inspiration comes from, it’s these kind of random things,” Rose said. Color was on her mind this season — and every season, really — conjuring a trip she once took to Still’s museum in Denver. In the past, she has played on the lines of architect Santiago Calatrava after seeing a bridge going up in Dallas, and built a collection featuring inky embroidery based on a small Jim Hodges spider web piece from her own collection.

Such connections come naturally for Rose; it’s in her blood. The designer grew up surrounded by the collection of her mother, Dallas art doyenne Deedie Rose, and received a first-hand education in contemporary art. These influences have found their way into her work, season after season.

Art may be a constant inspiration, but in the end, it comes down to color. “I always say, why not walk in wearing the bright orange or the bright yellow dress, something fun? When you put some color on you instantly feel happier, like you’re going to have some fun.”

Watch the video below to learn more about Lela Rose’s artistic inspiration.