Controlled Accidents is a term Alan M. Clark uses for his spontaneous image-generating painting techniques.  The unorthodox methods involve pushing paint around on a painting surface with rags, tin foil, balloons, sheets of plastic or plastic cylinders. The results are widely varied and suggest three dimensional shapes, sometimes nearly complete pictures.  Much as one might see faces in wood grain and figures in clouds, the shapes described by light and dark values of paint stimulate the imagination. 

In a Controlled Accident, an artist can find unexpected, bizarre subject matter.  The process of finding such subject matter, Clark calls Forced Hallucination.  What is found within the paint can be develop as part of a finished painting, or, in the case of a particularly successful Controlled Accident and Forced Hallucination endeavor, an entire painting might be discovered.  Similar techniques were used by such Surrealists as Max Ernst and Óscar Domínguez, to reveal subject matter from the subconscious. Clark will demonstrate both Controlled Accidents and Forced Hallucination in his demonstrations.