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Ad Code: 3
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from Auction House Records.
SMALL RED YELLOW AND BLUE TOO
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  A painter of brightly colored canvases with diverse styles from
non-objective to pop art to geometric abstraction, Mary Heilmann does
work that often reflects commonplace things she observes in her
surroundings such as patterns on air vents and
window-blinds. Her paintings often have lattice and grid
designs.
Frequently she paints over her canvases, which builds up both the
thickness of the paint and often the intensity of the color. Also
she is much influenced by certain movies, literature and music.
Her early paintings are acrylic on canvas, and more recently she has
favored oil painting.
According to critics, the artist gives the appearance of having fun
with her mediums and of not taking herself too seriously. One of
her departures from tradition is applying her paint around the sides of
her canvases and also painting on shaped canvases that then become
three dimensional.
Heilmann is a native of California and took up painting after
studying
at the University of California at Santa Barbara, majoring in
literature and pottery. Although her major focus has become
painting, she retains her pottery-making focus as well. In 1968,
she moved to New York City at a time when minimalism was becoming the
dominant style. However, she bucked this trend, staying with
in-your-face abstraction. An ongoing influence for Heilmann is
her favorite author Alain
Robbe-Grillet, whose prose moves gyroscopically, shifting fields of
focus and often returning to the subject at a later time. Also
being in California in the early 1960s she was influenced by artists
Bruce Naumann, Gordon Matta-Clark and Keith Sonnier.
In her autobiography, The All Night Movie, completed in
1999, Heilmann tells the story of her life and the inspirations for her
paintings. A 2007 solo exhibition of Heilmann's paintings, 75
works, is sponsored by the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport
Beach, and will travel to the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New
York City in 2008. In the promotional material, she is described
as: "A pioneer of infusing abstract painting with influences from
popular culture and craft traditions" and as "One of the very few
female abstract artists of her generation".
Sources include:
Stephen Westfall, Art in America, November 1993
Secession: http://www.secession.at/art/2003_heilmann_e.html
Orange County Museum: http://www.ocma.net/index.html?page=upcoming#Mary_Heilmann
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| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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