Jackson Pollock

I don't use the accident. I deny the accident.

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

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

My painting does not come from the easel. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the 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, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.

It's not enough to be a good painter; you have to be a good boxer, too.

I have a definite rejection of the object.

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. What you see is what you see.

I don't paint nature. I am nature.

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

I'm very representational, a lot of the time, and a lot of the time I'm not. But when you're working, you're not conscious of these things.

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 finds its own technique.

I have always been a painter. I was a painter before I could talk.

I don't care how a painting is put on, as long as something is said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.

If people would just look at the pictures, I don't think they would have any trouble. All most people want from art is to be put in a good mood.

I don't think there's any such thing as a mistake.

I'm not an abstract artist.

It's all a question of doing. When you are painting, you are not thinking about anything else.

Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.

I don't believe in the accident. I think I'm in control.

The source of my painting is the unconscious.