Action painters

In art, automatism refers to creating art without conscious thought, accessing material from the unconscious mind as part of the creative process

Formlessness is a concept, first introduced by French writer-philosopher Georges Bataille, who argued that art should be brought ‘down in the world’ from its elevated status to its base materialism – and that this debased state should be celebrated as a tool for creativity

Gestural is a term used to describe the application of paint in free sweeping gestures with a brush

Abstract expressionism is the term applied to new forms of abstract art developed by American painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often characterised by gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity