Jackson Pollock | Action Painting
Following the highly successful painting workshop held in October [Waves & Spirals], visual artist Emilia Tsekoura returns to FOUGARO ARTCENTER on May 23 with a pop-up workshop dedicated to the art of Jackson Pollock, inspired by his quote: “Painting is self-discovery.”
In this five-hour workshop, we will explore liberating movements, engaging our bodies physically around —and even within —our canvas placed on the floor, using Jackson Pollock’s technique while intuitively opening up the images of our inner world.
With one unique requirement: participants must bring their own painting canvas (70 x 100 cm).
About Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock, the American painter and leading figure of the Abstract Expressionist movement, was constantly emotionally absorbed by what he saw. One can imagine him looking at his paintings as if they were mirrors reflecting his very existence.
As an art student, Pollock struggled to control his pencil. He grimaced with concentration and fought to force it to obey his intentions. Other students produced drawing after drawing effortlessly, while he could hardly draw a proper line. Yet despite the disdain of others, he never gave up. He knew he had something to express as a painter —he simply did not yet know how.
By the mid-1940s, Pollock’s work had become entirely abstract, and the “drip and splash” style of Action Painting for which he became famous emerged in 1947. Instead of using a traditional easel, he placed the canvas on the floor and poured and dripped paint directly from the can, using commercial enamels and metallic paints whose texture suited his technique better. Rather than brushes, he manipulated paint with “sticks, trowels, or knives,” sometimes creating textured effects by adding sand, broken glass, or other foreign materials.
As he worked, he moved around and through his paintings, creating a new “all-over” style that avoided any central focal point and abandoned traditional ideas of composition.
Pollock portrayed primal energy and the complete liberation of inner forces. His works initially shocked most viewers, though some were deeply impressed by their energy and passion, opening entirely new paths for painting. Moreover, his method marked the end of the traditional geography of the painting: from then on, the eye could no longer rest on a single point within the composition.
Placing canvases on the ground and throwing paint at them may have seemed like a recipe for chaos. Pollock, however, insisted that his art contained “no chaos, damn it!” It was a brief perfection.
Pollock’s Dripping period lasted only from 1947 to 1952, yet the enormous fame he achieved rests upon the works of those five years. He was the first American painter to become a true star.
About Emilia Tsekoura
Born in Athens, Emilia Tsekoura studied at the Art Communication & Learning team in Athens (1978-80), at the Boston Museum’s School of Fine Arts (1980-84) and at the same time at Tufts University, graduating with a Bachelor in Arts & Sciences.
Between 1988 and 2013, Emilia taught at the Athens College using differentiation teaching, art therapy and the method of Harvard University’s Project Zero (TFU, Visual Thinking). To this day she has had several solo shows in Greece and the US and has participated in numerous group exhibitions.
She is motivated by concepts originating from her own nature and expressed in autobiographical and expressionist ways: woman, Goddess/Idol, birth, genesis, the ovoid, rebirth. The philosophy of constant change in life, nature and art is always the key principle behind her every work.
One element in her art is symbolism and the translation of icons into archetypes. The egg, the sphere, the round, the zero or “nothing” and their reflections, the heart, the spiral, the geometries of nature and many other familiar symbols and concepts appear in various guises, media and materials throughout her artistic course.
She works in Athens and teaches at the art workshops of Fougaro in Nafplio since 2013.
