FORM

What does abstract mean? Abstract is having an intellectual and affective artistic content that depends solely on intrinsic form rather than on narrative content of pictorial representation. The form is the subject and the subject is the emotion. The form can take the shape of anything, lines, circles, squares, and drippings of paint on a canvas. Jackson Pollock's work is a good example of Abstract art and how the mind deals with unconscious and conscious emotion.

Jackson Pollock focuses on forms to create and express meaning. He expresses himself unconsciously and consciously to the viewer. Jackson once said, " The method of painting is the natural growth out of need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them" ( pg 295). The forms that develop in his art are the representations of his emotions. There is no need for a narrative or picture. It's just the unconscious and conscious mind leading the body. In Pollock's art " the crassly physical - his gruff choreography, the flung paint, the bits of refuse - is made to signify the emotional, the unconscious" ( pg 298). Jackson Pollock's painting style is both conscious and unconscious because consciously he is awake and responding ot his emotions but unconsciously his style seems without conscious control or involuntary. Even though he is aware of his emotions he is unable to control them. His emotions are chaotic and random much like the shapes in his artwork. Jackson Pollock, I believe, is illustratiing emotion though random forms and he is doing this unconsciously. Thoughts and emotions are random and most times uncontrollabe much like the forms seen in Jackson Pollock's paintings.

Joselit, David. " Notes on Surface : Towards a Genelogy of Flatness".

Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Ed. Zoya, Kocur and Simon Leung.

Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. 2005. 295,298