Highway, Ocean, Daydreams

Hauser&Wirth’s Southampton location opens with the first public exhibition

Mary Heilmann has been living and working between NY and the oceanside hamlet of Bridgehampton on Long Island’s storied East End. During months that the artist spent away from the city this year, she has immersed herself in the mutable conditions of light, air, and colors specific to the oceanfront environment, channeling her observations into new paintings that expand upon her ongoing fascination with waves and water. Having studied poetry, ceramics, and sculpture in the 1960s, Mary Heilman’s path to painting was not a direct one. Reportedly, she “only began waiting after realizing that she could not get any attention for her sculptures as a woman artist”. Highway, Oceans, Daydreams’ exhibition spotlights Heilmann’s distinctively sculptural approach to paint and unique ability to elicit complex associations through deceptively simple forms.