The artist is a healer The artist is a thinker The artist is a witchdoctor The artist is a philosopher
Artist Statement
My Favorite Master, I'm practicing to be like him by Rozita Fogelman
Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) is my favorite master of American painting. His attitude toward painting has given an ultimate approach of freedom to contemporary paintings. If the artist’s role is to be free from any influence, to experiment and not just settle for the known, Pollock’s attempts pushed those boundaries like no one has previously. He was the evolutionary mast of the Abstract Expressionism. Without letting the outside manipulate his work; Pollock's paintings were created out of his need to paint his feelings; "I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them... there is no accident, I can control the flow of paint." Pollock (1951)
Breaking out from the conventional methods of representation or use of painting tools; and unaffected sublime subject matter, Pollock boundlessly rebelled against the intellectual purpose of painting for the sake of pure pleasure and joy. He was like a dancer, laid his canvas on a floor and circularized it around; “I hardly ever stretch my canvas before painting. I prefer to tack the unscratched canvas to the hard floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor, I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting…” Pollock (1947)
Consciously, he went into unconsciousness state, like in a trance to document his present energy that was a reflection of his present feelings and state of energetic mind. In his statement from 1947, Pollock said: “When I am in my 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."
Like a Zen master, Pollock merged himself with the flow of energy that in nature sometime appears as random, and times seems chaotic, but in Pollock's work the hidden energy unveiled the structure of that rhythm of the living pulse.
Pollock reversed the analytical order of creating art whereas before the artist had to analyze it first and then paint. Pollock’s large paintings opened windows to those energetic fields of harmony and rhythm. It is like looking through a magnifying glass to momentarily be transformed into magnificent energy fields. Where little particles of energy come into eye view, and in dynamic richness they gravitate towards the larger massive particles in space. The particles in different masses create variations of energy fields resulting in some bold strokes and thin lines with no beginning and without an end. “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…” Pollock (1947)