Quotes by Jackson Pollock

“When I am in a painting, Im not aware of what Im 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.”

“Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didnt have any beginning or any end. He didnt mean it as a compliment, but it was.”

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

“It doesnt 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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“Im very representational some of the time, and a little all of the time. But when youre painting out of your unconscious, figures are bound to emerge.”

Love is friendship set to music.

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

every good artist paints what he is

Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.

The painting has a life of its own

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

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.

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

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

My painting does not come from the easel.