Mimi Jiao – Looking Outwards 6 – Section E

Janet Sobel was an abstract expressionist painting whose works drew directly from Jackson Pollock’s drip painting techniques. Although her career was short lived, she created many well known pieces that have very interesting repetition of form and texture. Like Pollock, she used unconventional materials to create the drip effect, including glass pipettes and enamel paint. The drip painting technique is uses biased randomness. The drip of the painting is controlled by controlled and constant variables such as gravity, speed of paint drip, and acceleration, but since it is done so freehandedly, the amount of paint and the technique of the paint drip are highly influenced by the constant variables in ways that are extremely hard to control precisely. This creates randomness in the painting. Although the art is preplanned, a variety of environmental and other factors will affect the way the piece turns out, which makes it random. Of her works, I really appreciate this piece and this piece, which are both untitled. Having seen so much of Pollock’s drip paintings in mainstream media, it is very refreshing to see different artists’ interpretations of the same technique. I love that Sobel’s paintings have more of a sense of fluidity to them. The contrast of thick and thin, the pools of paint, and the overlapping of different colors creates a very free flowing liquidity that I really enjoy. It reminds me of opp art and psychedelic patterns, especially with the bright colors and stark contrast between colors. All of these visual elements combine together to generate visual flow and allows my eye to explore the piece from one point to another. It begins to create a narration for my brain to comprehend, and I find myself not overwhelmed with choosing a place to start looking, which is what I often experience when looking at Pollock’s work. One thing I wish I could see more of is the use of different colors. Sobel’s drip paintings almost always use red, black, and white, and I wish there were more works like the first one that explores more types of color interaction. It would also be nice if there were more contextual information about her works; I found it hard to understand her purpose for creating art with the lack of information on the internet. However, I really enjoy her take on the randomness of drip painting and I prefer it over Pollock’s works.