Pollock

By Ellie Silk ’22

Jackson Pollock was born into a American household in Wyoming in 1912. His abstract paintings were representational of his struggles with his own emotions, which he attempted to subdue through drinking. Although he struggled with alcoholism for most of his life, a 3 year period of sobriety became a turning point where he gained immense popularity. His piece in the Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute entitled Number 2 (1949), is placed in a gold frame with a fabric liner. The piece is roughly 3ftx16ft and was created using oil, duco and aluminum paint. The colors sprinkled and strewn across the burnt red canvas are yellow, a black/green, red, and white. The mixture of drips, splatters and drizzles work cohesively in the painting as if in a pattern. One can see the timeline of each color as it was added onto the canvas. To elaborate, the yellow and black streaks leading from the top to the bottom of the page have seeped into the red canvas, indicating that they were added first. Additionally, the white drips protrude from the page where they overlay on yellow and red splashes indicating that they were added later on.

According to the Hans Nameth video bibliography, Pollock prefers to “express feelings rather than illustrate them.” To show this he drips paint across a canvas using sticks, as well as sand, rocks, broken glass and string. His use of media (ie: sticks, rocks and glass) are very interesting because they are all natural items that could be found on the street. Furthermore, these unconventional items are used to shape the painting. To expand, most artworks are very intentional and the artist has full control of their medium. The brush will paint the pre-decided lines and the hands will mold the sculpture as desired. However, Pollock has less control in his paintings because he is dripping and splattering the canvas, which can be messy and chaotic. The organized chaos found in his paintings were transferable to his life. He drank to subdue his emotional and sexual confusion, however his alcoholism had the opposite effect and lead to constant reckless and dangerous outbursts. Perhaps he chose this method of artistry because it was a physically safe, yet anarchic outburst. It perfectly represented his crazed childhood with constant comparisons to his brothers, and served as a form of opposition to the traditional methods of painting- which he failed to master.