Painted in 2001-2002, Mary Heilmann’s Glide is a quintessential example of Mary Heilmann's subversive approach to abstract painting. A response to the rigid, often clinical and uncompromising languages the minimalism, Heilmann’s paintings disavow the tenets of rigid formalism, and instead celebrate the spontaneous ethos of the act of painting itself, inspired by the Beat Generation and the artist’s formative years on the West Coast.
"We argued in bars and we took ourselves very seriously. I mean, you hated the color field painters." —Mary Heilmann
In the artist’s often-visited diptych form, Glide presents the juxtaposition of bold angled lines and bright circles of vivid color with thick horizontal colored bands that are reminiscent of a Mexican sarape, with both panels unified by a cool turquoise background. Exemplary of the artist’s most celebrated compositions and monumental in its scale, Glide is suffused with Heilmann’s iconic, joyous approach to form and color that equally draws on the rich history of modern painting, popular culture and her everyday experiences.
On the occason of Mary Heilmann: Looking at Pictures at Whitechapel Gallery in London in 2016, the artist reflected on over four decades of painting.
