North Texas Daily

Chad Robertson | Staff Writer

@chadr0b

Framed raw canvases stained with dripped enamel and oil paintings hang on museum walls, reviving remarkable works of art from one of America’s most prominent artists of the past.

Jackson Pollock’s “Blind Spots” exhibit, located at the Dallas Museum of Art, guides the observer through a journey back to the artist’s drip period, which lasted throughout the 1940s and ’50s. Each piece reflected Pollock’s pioneering of the abstract expressionist movement.

Born in 1912, Pollock was well into his thirties when his drip period went full-scale. In the mid 1940s, he bought a home near East Hampton with his wife, Lee Krasner. The new abode featured a storage barn, which Pollock subsequently transformed into an art studio.

Having a workspace of his own, Pollock was able to lie out raw sheets of canvas and had the chance to let his abstract paint-dripping technique take flight.

The exhibit itself reflected the era when his works were created. The gallery was designed with grey carpet, thick white baseboards and neutral, pale-colored walls. Low-profile black leather furniture hearkened to the post-modern era that the 1950s once were.

The exhibition showcased Pollock’s ability to craft a diverse portfolio and included works from his artistically innovative years.

Pollock’s drip works after 1951 are commonly recognized as being darker in color, possibly reflecting his struggle with alcoholism, or his desire to obstruct the direction he saw his more colorful works going.

Each piece, at first glance, resembled intertwined streams of enamel paint, which seemed to have no beginning or end. Even after being able to depict human facial features or other subliminal forms beneath the surface, the work unfailingly stirred a bit of chaos in the viewer’s emotions.

Along with works created on huge raw pieces of canvas, the exhibit included abstract work by the artist, done with ink on mulberry and Japanese paper.

In 1956, Pollock began constructing sculptures crafted from wire and plaster. Just one of these sculptures made it into the exhibit, but it did a concrete job at showing the dynamic artist Pollock was. These sculptures were the last of Pollock’s artistic work before his death in 1956.

The exhibit showcased Pollock’s chaotic yet meticulous drip works and invoked a revival of appreciation for his ability to deliver a resounding message to whomever viewed the art. The pieces reveal what the human spirit experienced throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

Sixty years after his death, Pollock’s works continue to express the movement he so passionately lead and crafted, inspiring modern artists to innovate and break bounds.