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Famous Words by a Famous Man

Many critics did not understand where Jackson Pollock was coming from with his paintings. But today, we know more about the man and these following quotes can help further understand his motivation and drive to do what he did.

Jackson Pollock said:

"My paintings do not have a center, but depend on the same amount of interest throughout."

"When I am in a painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc, because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well."

"When I am painting I have a general notion as to what I am about. I can control the flow of paint: there is no accident."

Jackson Pollock"New needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements ... the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture."

“[A canvas is] an arena in which to act."

"Every good artist paints what he is."

"I'm very representational some of the time, and a little all of the time. But when you're painting out of your unconscious, figures are bound to emerge."

"The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating."

"I don't work from drawings. I don't make sketches and drawings and color sketches into a final painting."

"Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was."

"Today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within."

"The strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art."

"It [abstract art] should be enjoyed just as music is enjoyed – after a while you may like it or you may not."

In response to the question "How do you know when you're finished?" Pollock replied "How do you know when you're finished making love?"

“The modern artist…is working and expressing an inner world – in other words – expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces”

“I continue to get further away from the usual painter’s tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added.”

 


Jack the Dripper
Jackson Pollock Unauthorized - Biography - Downfall
Works
Important Works - Pollock in Print and on Screen
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Drip Paintings - Abstract Expressionism - Unique Style - Did You Know? - Famous Quotes - The Technique of Action Painting in Jackson Pollock Paintings
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Pollock-Krasner Foundation - Where his Paintings Are - Online Art Gallery - Links