Jackson Pollock Quotes & Sayings

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

When I say artist I mean 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

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. — Jackson Pollock

People have always frightened and bored me consequently I have been within my own shell. — Jackson Pollock

I don't use the accident - 'cause I deny the accident — Jackson Pollock

I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. — Jackson Pollock

A man's life is his work; his work is his life. — 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

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

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

every good artist paints what he is — Jackson Pollock

You can't learn techniques and then try to become a painter. Techniques are a result. — Jackson Pollock

The modern artist ... is working and expressing an inner world - in other words - expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces. — Jackson Pollock

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? — 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

Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement. — Jackson Pollock

A real friend is someone you say a sentence to and they know ten thousand words behind that sentence. — Jackson Pollock

On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. — Jackson Pollock

I've been thinking of death a lot, and I am amazed by its inevitability, frightened, as we all are, of the totally unknown, and yet feel a long sleep is somehow earned by those of us who live on the edge. — 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

When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. — Jackson Pollock

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

If people would just look at the paintings, I don't think they would have any trouble enjoying them. It's like looking at a bed of flowers, you don't tear your hair out over what it means. — Jackson Pollock

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. — Jackson Pollock

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. — Jackson Pollock

I hardly ever stretch the canvas before painting. — 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

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. — Jackson Pollock

A canvas is an arena in which to act. — Jackson Pollock

I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. — Jackson Pollock

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

I can control the flow of paint: there is no accident. — Jackson Pollock

My painting does not come from the easel. — Jackson Pollock

The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. — 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

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

Every good painter paints what he is. — Jackson Pollock

Painting is a state of being. — 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

I want to express my feelings, not illustrate them. — Jackson Pollock

Bums are the well-to-do of this day. They didn't have as far to fall. — Jackson Pollock

I don't paint nature. I am nature. — Jackson Pollock

Art is coming face to face with yourself. — Jackson Pollock

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

Love is friendship set to music. — Jackson Pollock

Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is. — Jackson Pollock

He drove his kind of realism at me so hard I bounced right into nonobjective painting. — Jackson Pollock

Painting is no problem. The problem is what to do when you're not painting. — Jackson Pollock

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. — Jackson Pollock

On the floor I am more at ease, — Jackson Pollock

The secret of success is ... to be fully awake to everything about you. — 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

The painting has a life of its own — Jackson Pollock

There is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end. — Jackson Pollock

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. — 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

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

It doesn't matter how the paint is put on, as long as something is said. — Jackson Pollock

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

The modern artist is working with space and time and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating. — Jackson Pollock

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