Paul Jackson Pollock was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his technique of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a horizontal surface (“drip technique”), enabling him to view and paint his canvases from all angles. It was also called all-over painting and “action painting”, since he covered the entire canvas and used the force of his whole body to paint, often in a frenetic dancing style. These Jackson Pollock quotes will motivate you.
Best Jackson Pollock Quotes
- “Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.” ~ 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
- “The secret of success is… to be fully awake to everything about you.” ~ Jackson Pollock
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“Art is coming face to face with yourself.” ~ 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
- “There is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “It doesn’t matter how the paint is put on, as long as something is said.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “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.” ~ Jackson Pollock
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“I don’t paint nature. I am nature.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “Painting is no problem. The problem is what to do when you’re not painting.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “Energy and motion made visible – memories arrested in spaceTechnic 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
- “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 other inner forces.” ~ Jackson Pollock
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“A canvas is an arena in which to act.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “A real friend is someone you say a sentence to and they know ten thousand words behind that sentence.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “I can control the flow of paint: there is no accident.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them.” ~ Jackson Pollock
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“I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “Something in me knows where I’m going, and – well, painting is a state of being. … Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.” ~ 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’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
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“You can’t learn techniques and then try to become a painter. Techniques are a result.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “It doesn’t 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
- “It seems to me that 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. Each age find its own technique.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “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.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “Love is friendship set to music.” ~ Jackson Pollock
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“Painting is a state of being.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “I want to express my feelings, not illustrate them.” ~ 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
- “My paintings do not have a center, but depend on the same amount of interest throughout.” ~ Jackson Pollock
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“My concern is with the rhythms of nature I work inside out, like nature.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “Modern art to me is nothing more than the expression of contemporary aims of the age that we’re living in.” ~ 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
- “I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “I don’t use the accident – ’cause I deny the accident” ~ Jackson Pollock
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“A man’s life is his work; his work is his life.” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “People have always frightened and bored me consequently I have been within my own shell.” ~ 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
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“Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.” ~ 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
- “Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you.” ~ 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
- “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
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“He drove his kind of realism at me so hard I bounced right into nonobjective painting.” ~ 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
- “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
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“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
- “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
- “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
- “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 -
“Every good painter paints what he is.” ~ 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
- “I do not paint nature. I am nature.” ~ Jackson Pollock Quotes
- “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
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“How do you know when you’re finished making love?” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “The painting has a life of its own” ~ Jackson Pollock
- “The strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art.” ~ 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
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“My painting does not come from the easel.” ~ 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
- “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
- “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
- “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 am doubtful of any talent, so whatever I choose to be, will be accomplished only by long study and work” ~ Jackson Pollock
