Jackson Pollock Quotes - Page 3

The painting has a life of its own

When I'm painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It's only after a get acquainted period that I see what I've been about. I've no fears about making changes for the painting has a life of its own.

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.

Well, method is, it seems to me, a natural growth out of a need, and from a need the modern artist has found new ways of expressing the world about him. I happen to find ways that are different from the usual techniques, which seems a little strange at the moment, but I don't think there's anything very different about it. I paint on the floor and this isn't unusual - the Orientals did that.

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.

The painter locks himself out of his own studio. And then has to break in like a thief.

My painting does not come from the easel.

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

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

My opinion is that new needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements.

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.

How do you know when you're finished making love?

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

I am doubtful of any talent, so whatever I choose to be, will be accomplished only by long study and work

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.

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

The process is only a means to an end-creating the painting I want. It doesn't mean anything itself. It's only a way of creating a result.

A method of painting is a 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.

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

Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within.

On the floor I am more at ease.

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.

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.

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.

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.