For this assignment I researched Jackson Pollock, an abstract expressionist from the mid 1900s. He is most well known for his drip paintings. For this style, Pollock would place a large canvas on the floor or against the wall and walk around it, dripping paint from a paint can. He would tend not to use brushes, choosing instead knives or sticks. Pollock used house paints and tended to use the entire canvas. Sometimes he would add sand and broken glass to his works. The sand in particular is reminiscent of Native American art. Pollock’s style of painting is very physical and very emotional; it is like surrealism in that it involves the unconscious, but it is also very controlled.

Work:

I chose to focus on Lavender Mist, also known as Number 1, 1950. It seems to display Pollock’s drip style of painting very well. It consists mainly of six colors (a muted yellow, a pale orange, a dark teal, a bluish-gray, white, and black) splattered around the canvas, covering the entire thing. In the very right edge there is one spot of red. In the upper-right of the painting there is a handprint, but otherwise the work is crisscrossing lines of paint that suggest excessive movement.