Sam Rose considers the work of Mary Heilmann, now on view at Hauser & Wirth, London, in relation to the recent exhibition The Indiscipline of Painting: International Abstraction from the 1960s to Now at Mead Gallery Warwick Arts Centre.

Rose writes: "Can one be playful and 'indisciplined' in a way disciplined enough to justify the deep importance that the project of abstraction always wanted to claim? The point is brought into sharp relief by the current exhibition of Mary Heilmann's work at Hauser & Wirth. Heilmann plays off these two sides, as she probes deep affectivity alongside the kind of comic seriousness that abstract art has often found itself turning towards."