I've always been inspired by Robert Rauschenberg's work since he was a printmaker.  I love how he mixed everything together creating abstract mixed media art works.

Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who became prominent in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is known for his "Combines", in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance. Rauschenberg's career tells more about the New York art community. Rauschenberg's attitude toward the means of art extended to media, people, everything. He opened art to: engineers, socialites, All-About-Eve assistants, politicians, trade unionists, dancers, instant collectors, Utopians, scientists, foundation swingers, art groupies, and all rubbed shoulders with the incongruous elements in his art. This rich mixture seemed to confirm the desire populists always have: that the boundaries of art are breaking down.

Rauschenberg carried the day when fashion forced the art community to go along with him - until that moment in 1964 when he won the grand prize at the Venice Biennale. They institutionalized Rauschenberg's irony, which he tended to leave open and innocent by eliminating process and presenting a facade of subject matter. Subject matter, which Rauschenberg had clearly shown was not incompatible with aesthetic discourse. When the subject matter was the everyday object, the irony was built into the surface. It was not just the object that became subject matter but the use of commercial design as subject matter. The fact that the design was contemporary was one of the things that made Pop revolutionary.

Rauschenberg's approach was sometimes called "Neo Dadaist." He wanted to work "in the gap between art and life", between art objects and everyday objects. Rauschenberg took a step in what could be considered the opposite direction by championing the role of creator in creating art's meaning. Rauschenberg's paintings were beginning to incorporate not only found objects but found images as well - photographs transferred to the canvas by means of the silkscreen process. Silkscreen allowed Rauschenberg to address the number of reproducibility of images.

In 1984, Rauschenberg announced his Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI), at the United Nations. This culminated a seven year, ten country tour to encourage "world peace and understanding," through Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, Beijing, Lhasa (Tibet), Japan, Cuba, Soviet Union, Berlin, and Malaysia in which he left a piece of art, and was influenced by the cultures he visited. Paintings, often on reflective surfaces, as well as drawings, photographs, assemblages and other multimedia were produced, inspired by these surroundings, which was considered some of his strongest works.

In addition to painting and sculpture, Rauschenberg's career also included significant contributions to printmaking and Performance Art. Rauschenberg created "White Paintings," in the tradition of monochromatic painting, whose purpose was to reduce painting to its most essential nature. The Black Paintings like the White Paintings were executed on multiple panels and were single color works. Rauschenberg had moved from the monochromatic paintings of the White Painting and Black Painting series, to the Red Painting series. These paintings were created with diverse kinds of paint applications of red paint, and with the addition of materials such as wood, nails, newsprint and other materials to the canvas created complex painting surfaces, and were forerunners of Rauschenberg's well-known Combine series. Rauschenberg's neutrality was of a different order and his identification with the moment far less flawless. At the height of his powers in the sixties, his marvelous effervescence dispensed with any historical delays as he rode his wave. Yet his ebullient commitment to art as a short-term venture never quite disposed of the fact that he was an educated artist.