Chuck Close on Jackson Pollock

“I went to the Seattle Art Museum with my mother for the first time when I was 11. I saw this Jackson Pollock drip painting with aluminum paint, tar, gravel and all that stuff. I was absolutely outraged, disturbed. It was so far removed from what I thought art was. However, within 2 or 3 days, I was dripping paint all over my old paintings. In a way I’ve been chasing that experience ever since. That’s the reason why I’ve been going to see shows in different galleries, and trying to look at the work of emerging artists as much as I can, in an attempt to recreate or re-live that sensation of being shocked. That’s the greatest moment in an artist’s life. Whatever you hold as true to art is being challenged; you sort of recoil and it gets under your skin and just keeps bothering you until you understand what the issues are.” —Chuck Close [Source]