“I am nature”

Dripping with significance
Independent, The (London), Mar 9, 1999 by Tom Lubbock

The pros saw the pure, unmediated expressions of body or soul; a painting made in a trance state, with Pollock’s unconscious or impulses marked down on the canvas. Obviously, this was partly what Pollock wanted. He wanted a spontaneous painting that by-passed the turgid symbolism of his earlier psycho-dramas and came straight from the deep psyche. He wanted pictures that - like some decoration - looked unmade and unauthored, as if they had just developed of themselves. But the paradox of his achievement is that these things could only be done with a lot of artistry. Pollock’s act was a careful balancing act; a matter of holding things in tension, fine-tuning so as to keep all possibilities open. The classic paintings have multiple intimations, none of which is quite suppressed, none of which definitely arrives. There are - despite the “over all” talk - hints of an underlying structure, perhaps something quasi-figurative and deeply buried in all the business. There are hints, too, of infinitely complex patterning. There are hints of complete chaos and randomness. There’s finally a strong entropic tendency towards an absolutely inert homogeneity. And all these aspects shift one into another. The result is work that’s untraceable and ungraspable. It offers inexhaustible interest to the eye. It can be contemplated endlessly.

Pollock’s most memorable saying was his reply to being asked, why he didn’t work more from nature: “I am nature.”

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19990309/ai_n14210492/pg_2