In Night Swimmer, from 1998, five white and five ultramarine stripes froth away at each other: an emphatically abstract painting, but at the same time, just what a swimmer might see when breasting the waves at midnight. The title in fact refers to an REM song, but this exemplary work goes back to Heilmann’s youth as a diver and surfer off the coast of California. Not that she has ever given up swimming; in her late 70s, Heilmann’s energy and joie de vivre continue unabated. It is no surprise that her paintings, back home in America, have been praised in terms of both diving and surfing. (https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jun/12/winifred-knights-mary-heilmann-looking-at-pictures-dulwich-whitechapel-review)