Jackson Pollock

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

“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. 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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.”

“I hardly ever stretch the canvas before painting.”

“My painting does not come from the easel.”

“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.”

“Every good painter paints what he is.”

“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.”

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

“every good artist paints what he is”