POLLOCKED

Continuing on with my research on imitating my favorite painter’s techniques in a procedural/generative environment using Touchdesigner, I decided to work on Jackson Pollock for my next project. Specifically between 1947 and 1952 which is famously known as his Drip Period . What makes this period very important is the fact that he made his most famous paintings during this period, making him the leading figure of the abstract/expressionist movement. In the early 1940’s Pollock began to lose the figures and forms of his earlier work and covered his canvas completely with marks and by 45 his work transitioned into the drip paintings that he is so famous for. His style of painting is also known as action painting. He brought together elements of Cubism, Surrealism and Impressionism, and with this method he transcended them all. Action painting was first coined in 1952 by the American art critic Harold Rosenberg in the December edition of Art News. It referred to Pollock’s technique of dripping paint onto a canvas. Instead of using the traditional easel, he placed his canvases on the floor and dripped, splattered and poured paint onto them from a can, using sticks, trowels or knives or even his body as Pollock himself stated “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.”