First of all, all art is an abstraction. Realistically rendered art .even photo-realism is an abstraction of what it sets out to represent. In other words it is something other than the real thing. No matter how much a portrait looks like someone it is still an interpretation of that person or landscape, or what have you. With all that said the term better used is "non-representational " What I like best about the works that fall into that category is that they are freed up to express a wider range of topics. Pollock used his style/method of painting to relay a sense of movement in his activity of painting, so they're often referred to as "action paintings". Although to some his work might appear to be a random acts of splattering paint onto a canvas. Far from it. Over time he developed techniques of applying the paint to achieve desired effects. His paintings were though out,and planned yet allowed for spontaneity As much as he liked to deny it Pollock was an academically trained painter having studied under Thomas Hart Benton and appears as the blond haired harmonica player in the foreground of Benton's painting,The Ballard of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley". for which he sat for while a student.
