Jackson Pollock Quotes

32 Sourced Quotes

I don't care for 'Abstract expressionism'.... and it is certainly not 'non-objective', and not 'non-representational' either. I'm very representational some of the time, and a little all of the time. But when you're painting out of your consciousness, figures are bound to emerge. We're all of us influenced by Freud, I guess. I've been a Jungian for a long time... Painting is a state of being... Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.

Jackson Pollock
When I am in my painting, I am not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a short 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.

Jackson Pollock
The method of painting is the natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement... I can control the flow of paint: there is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end.

Jackson Pollock
The modern artist is living in a mechanical age and we have a mechanical means of representing objects in nature such as the camera and photograph. The modern artist, it seems to me, is working and expressing an inner world – in other words – expressing the energy, the motion and the other inner forces.... the modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.

Jackson Pollock
With experience it seems to be possible to control the flow of paint, to a great extent, and I don't use – I don't use the accident – 'cause I deny the accident.... it's quite different from working, say, from a still life where you set up objects and work directly from them. I do have a general notion of what I'm about and what the results will be. I approach painting in the same sense as one approaches drawing, that is, it's direct.

Jackson Pollock
I don't work from drawings and colour sketches into a final painting. Painting, I think, today – the more immediate, the more direct – the greater the possibilities of making a direct – of making a statement.

Jackson Pollock
On his painting 'She wolf':
It came into existence because I had to paint it. Any attempt on my part to say something about it, to attempt explanation of the inexplicable, could only destroy it.

Jackson Pollock
As to what I would like to be. It is difficult to say. An Artist of some kind. If nothing else I shall always study the Arts. People have always frightened and bored me, consequently I have been within my own shell and have not accomplished anything materially.

Jackson Pollock
I continue to get further away from the usual painter's tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc.

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.

Jackson Pollock
Most of the paint I use is a liquid, flowing kind of paint. The brushes I use are more a sticks rather than brushes – the brush doesn't touch the surface on the canvas, it's just above....[so] I am able to be more free and to have greater freedom and move about the canvas, with greater ease.

Jackson Pollock
My concern is with the rhythms of nature... I work inside out, like nature.

Jackson Pollock
The important thing is that Clyff Still – you know his work? – and Rothko, and I – we've changed the nature of painting... I don't mean there aren't any other good painters. Bill [Willem the Kooning] is a good painter, but he's a 'French' painter [Pollock meant: a French-abstract style]. I told him so, the last time I saw him after his last show,... all those pictures in his last show start with an image. You can see it even though he's covered it up, or tried to.... Style – that's the French part of it. He has to cover it up with style..

Jackson Pollock
When I say artist I don't mean in the narrow sense of the word – but the man who is building things – creating molding the earth – whether it be the plains of the west – or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction – some with a brush – some with a shovel – some choose a pen.

Jackson Pollock
The idea of an isolated American painting, so popular in this country during the thirties, seems absurd to me, just as the idea of a purely American mathematics or physics would seem absurd... And in another sense, the problem doesn't exist at all; or, if it did, would solve itself: An American is an American and his painting would naturally be qualified by the fact, whether he wills or not. But the basic problems of contemporary painting are independent of any one country.

Jackson Pollock
I believe easel painting to be a dying form, and the tendency of modern feeling is toward the wall picture or mural..

Jackson Pollock
The pictures I contemplate painting would constitute a halfway state and attempt to point out the direction of the future - without arriving there completely

Jackson Pollock
The thing that interests me is that today painters do not have to go to a subject-matter outside themselves. Modern painters work in a different way. They work from within.

Jackson Pollock
Naturally, the result is the thing [in painting] and it doesnvery vibrantt make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.

Jackson Pollock
I've had a period of drawing on canvas in black – with some of my early images coming thru -, think the non-objectivists will find them disturbing – and the kids who think it simple to splash a 'Pollock' out.

Jackson Pollock
Each age finds its own technique... I mean, the strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art.

Jackson Pollock
My painting does not come from the easel. I hardly ever stretch my canvas before painting. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the method of the Indian sand painters of the West.

Jackson Pollock
My work with Benton was important as something against which to react very strongly, later on; in this, it was better to have worked with him than with a less resistant personality who would have provided a much less strong opposition. At the same time Benton introduced me to Renaissance art.

Jackson Pollock
Well, painting today certainly seems very vibrant, very alive, very exiting. Five or six of my contemporaries around New York are doing very vital work, and the direction that painting seems to be taken here – is – away from the easel – into some sort, some kind of wall, wall painting...

Jackson Pollock
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. It was a fine compliment.

Jackson Pollock
I think they [the public] should not look for, but look passively — and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for... and I think the unconsciousness drives do mean a lot in looking at paintings... I think it should enjoyed just as music is enjoyed — after a while you may like it or you may not. But it doesn't seem to be too serious. I like some flowers, and others, other flowers I don't like. I think at least it gives — at least give it a chance.

Jackson Pollock
I accept the fact that the important painting of the last hundred years was done in France. American painters have generally missed the point of modern painting from beginning to end...Thus the fact that good European moderns [European artists who lived in the U.S. because of the Nazi-regime] are now here is very important, for they bring with them an understanding of the problems of modern painting. I am particularly impressed with their concept of the source of art being the unconscious. These idea interests me more than these specific artists do, for the two artists I admire most, Picasso and Joan Miró, are still abroad.

Jackson Pollock
It seems to me that the modern painter cannot express his age, the airplane the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of Renaissance or of any past culture. Each age finds its own technique...

Jackson Pollock
Modern art to me is nothing more than the expression of contemporary aims of the age we're living in... All cultures have had means and techniques of expressing their immediate aims – the Chinese, the Renaissance, all cultures. The thing that interests me is that 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.

Jackson Pollock
Technic is the result of a need new needs demand new technics total control denial of the accident States of order organic intensity energy and motion made visible memories arrested in space, human needs and motives acceptance

Jackson Pollock