Joshua Davis On Pollock & Dynamic Abstraction
“Among modern artists I conceptually identify with Jackson Pollock – not that I’m a particular fan of his visual style, but because he always identified himself as a painter, even though a lot of the time his brush never hit the canvas. There’s something in that disconnect – not using a brush or tool in traditional methods.”
and
“Pollock might argue that it’s the process of abstraction that’s dynamic, not the end result, which in his case is a static painting. In my own work, the end result is never static; by making room for as many anomalies as possible, every composition generated by the programs we write is unique to itself. I’ll program the “brushes,” the “paints,” the “strokes,” the “rules”, and the “boundaries”. However it is the software that creates the compositions — the programs draw themselves. I am in a constant state of surprise and discovery, because the program may structure compositions that I may never have thought of to execute or might take me hours to create manually.”
Interesting insight on Pollock. I have a Pollock print in my office and I often see it as static – yet beautiful. But last time I was at the MOMA, I saw an old home video on Pollock. In that video, it showed him creating a painting on glass, shot from below, through the glass. The energy in that creative process was truly amazing. And the final piece, stood right beside the monitor showing Jackson creating the piece…it looked still..,and calm after watching the energy he put into creating it.
Ultimately, in the books and artwork, I think the process of creation, is where the energy dwells. Not in the end result. If you read Stein, her words seem flat today. But the way she created those passages is where the energy lies.
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