Lil Totem, 1997, is a quintessential example of Mary Heilmann's subversive approach to abstract painting. Fusing minimalist geometries with the spontaneous ethos of the Beat Generation and West Coast, Heilmann's paintings are suffused with a joyous approach to form and color that equally draws on the rich history of modern painting, popular culture and her everyday experiences.
"Well, I didn’t know how to make a composition, so I chose the grid. Most of them are cool, hardedged, austere. I wanted to do something else with a grid, not be so rigid about it."
—Mary Heilmann
As Konrad Bitterli observed of the paintings Heilmann created in the late 1990s, "In general, the oil paint, applied in differing consistency alla prima, seems to have whipped up the picture plane to a state of great excitement. The hectic movement on the surface contrasts with a subtle oscillation between picture surface and picture depth. The varied brightness of the different blue and violet tones break up the closed surface into serially-set floating levels" (Konrad Bitterli, "Painting—Deconstructed Reconstructed Two Works by Mary Heilmann", Mary Heilmann, Little 9 x 9 (1973) / Blue Room (1997), Kassel, 2000, online).