Jackson Pollock Quotes

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

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

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.

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.

Art is coming face to face with yourself.

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

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

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

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

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you.

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

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

I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them.

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

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.

A canvas is an arena in which to act.

Love is friendship set to music.

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

The painting has a life of its own

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?

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.

Every good painter paints what he is.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Modern art to me is nothing more than the expression of contemporary aims of the age that we're living in.

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.

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

My painting does not come from the easel.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.

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

On the floor I am more at ease.

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.

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

I want to express my feelings, not illustrate them.

I hardly ever stretch the canvas before painting.

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

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

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