Untitled c. 1951

This undated work was made by Jackson Pollock with ink on paper, and when I look at it, I see an artist working through something, like notes in a visual diary. The restrained palette, mostly black with hints of blue, is very different from his more famous colourful paintings and invites a more contemplative mood. The surface is raw, the paper almost like skin, marked by splatters and drips. Look closely, and you can see how the ink bleeds slightly into the paper, creating these soft halos around each mark. It’s like he's mapping out a constellation, or maybe just experimenting with how much control he can relinquish. There’s one cluster of marks near the center, a little denser than the rest, with that subtle blue halo. It feels like a focal point, a quiet storm of ink. It reminds me of Cy Twombly, another artist who embraced the scribble, or maybe even some of Agnes Martin’s more minimal works. It shows that art is an ongoing conversation, a dance between intention and accident.