Heaven

Mary Heilmann is known for brightly colored, loosely geometric, abstract canvases that are influenced by personal experience, such as her childhood in California and her interest in music. More typical works are inspired by modernist compositional devices like a grid. Her paintings always include, to some degree, deliberate experimental alterations such as messy drips, rogue brushstrokes, and unexpected color combinations. Here these attributes predominate. Evincing an unusual freedom of lyrical and light gestures, Heaven is an exceptional work in Heilmann’s oeuvre. It is intended, in part, as an homage to the artist Joan Mitchell (whose City Landscape is on view upstairs, in Gallery 289).