Seeing things - visions, waves, and roads

VisionsAfter having initially studied literature and ceramics, the West Coast artist didn’t just relocate to New York, but also switched to painting. Since then her completely independent repertoire of form has become something of a trademark. Her thoroughly individual abstractions are not comparable with the palette and formal range of established abstractions, which many artists have steered towards. Mary Heilmann combines forms and colours as she sees fit; at times red or pink, occasionally a cube, a wave, or perhaps a grid structure. A number of interpretations have detected an influence from Pop Art or jazz, others have discovered that subtle childlike element or indeed, rudiments of Informel. Mary Heilmann herself has brought together ideas and influences in a small readable volume, in which she provides information, describes her sources and publishes photographs. The sixth edition of Kienbaum Artist’s Books features thus the work of an artist who has also become highly regarded in museum circles in the meantime, to which a recent exhibition at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne in 2010 bears witness.