“Mary Heilman: To Be Someone”

Mary Heilmann was painting little squiggly figures on canvas back when abstract expressionism was an angry and depressed boy’s club. “Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone,” the new retrospective of her work, takes viewers beyond the artist’s best-known techniques and subject matter. It includes work created before she made her 1972 debut and displays her forays into ceramics, film and music, all of which extend the unsophisticated attitude of her paintings. A valued part of the San Francisco Bay Area art scene, Heilmann is known for rough, simple, minimalist pieces — sometimes only a few dabs of color on a black or white background — that, despite their simplicity, seem meaningful. Heilmann will be in attendance at the exhibit’s opening, 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, and at an artist talk 2 p.m. Saturday. Regular viewing hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursdays, and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Brown Foundation Gallery, 5216 Montrose. For information, call 713-284-8250 or visit www.camh.org. Free
Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: Nov. 2. Continues through Jan. 6, 2007