A Decisive Collection That’s the Picture of Ease

More than any other painter working today, Mary Heilmann can make a quickly flicked drip, a loosely brushed smudge or a solitary dollop of color seem like a big event. To see the New York-based artist’s eight oils on canvas at Richard Telles Fine Art (in a long overdue L.A. solo debut) is to know that you’re looking at a major talent in action, even if you can’t precisely say why.

What is clear is that Heilmann makes abstract painting look easy. Breathlessly beautiful, none of her vertically oriented works (which range in size from less than 3 by 2 feet to more than 6 by 5 feet) bear any trace of indecision, doubt or struggle--not to mention torment, dread or angst.

Airy and open, these simple paintings are the very embodiment of ease. Both calm and voluptuous, they put everything they’ve got in a handful of basic painterly maneuvers and let these moves speak for themselves.

Consequently, the artist’s specific intentions count for very little, and viewers are given fewer guidelines than usual. If you prefer freedom to restriction or open-endedness to heavy-handedness, you’ll find a lot to satisfy you in Heilmann’s sensational abstractions.

Described in words, there’s not much to one of her paintings. For example, a ravishing diptych at the far end of this gorgeously installed show consists of two juicy white panels. The left one is interrupted by a horizontal band of blue, and the right one is spotted with five similarly blue blobs.

That’s it.

Of course, connoisseurs and hedonists will notice that the edges of the closely juxtaposed canvases have been painted blue, to cast a cool halo of reflected color on the gallery wall. Likewise, a splashy layer of bright yellow underpainting heats up the center of the spotted panel. And numerous drips, smears and semi-translucent layers of paint enrich the seemingly Minimal diptych, without compromising its clarity.

Other pieces consist of a dozen or fewer rectangles arranged in relaxed grids or a smattering of dots set among a few lines and rectangles, recalling tokens atop a child’s game board. In one of the newest works, a hint of peach drifts like the scent of perfume among three turquoise clouds in a sky of liquid white.

When a painting by Heilmann is on the mark, there’s nothing quite like it. The lyrical joy of De Kooning’s best late paintings echoes across these seemingly slapdash surfaces, adding to their romance and drama. If you never thought a masterpiece could be casual, generous and optimistic, Heilmann’s paintings just might change your mind.

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* Richard Telles Fine Art, 7380 Beverly Blvd., (213) 965-5578, through Nov. 8. Closed Sundays and Mondays.