Heilmann plays a colourful tune

Mary Heilmann's abstract paintings are a testament to sheer doggedness and disregard for fashion. At a time when the art object itself seemed to be in terminal decline and Conceptualism's rigorous austerity was practically the only officially sanctioned art of America, Heilmann not only discovered painting but, shockingly, colour too.

This is Heilmann's first solo exhibition in this country and most of the paintings here are from the 1990s. But there's one key canvas from this earlier period, the 1976 Chinatown, a Rothko-like red colourfield painting in acrylic. It's a two-panel painting on canvas where paler, thick-edged borders offset the crimson. But, unlike Rothko's shimmering, soft-focus floating forms, here the paint has been so liberally layered its surface is hard and lacquer-like. She has eschewed the staining practices of Rothko and the hard-edged geometry of Barnett Newman, instead producing something indeterminately in between which is unappealingly clumsy and slapdash.

More recently, Heilmann has used various techniques, from applying thin, translucent layers and allowing them to drip in improvised zigzags to scoring and chiselling into the paint surface, derived from her earlier ceramics training. These meet with varied success. The balanced interplay of colour-chart geometry, floating circular forms and webbed lines of Chemical Tune, 1999, certainly stands out against some heavier-handed effects.

Until June 3, Camden Arts Centre, Arkwright Road NW3, Tue to Thu 11am to 7pm, Fri to Sun 11am to 5.30pm (except Good Fri), free. Tel: 020 7435 2643. Tube: Finchley Road