Helen Frankenthaler (b. 1928)

"Truth comes when one is totally involved in the act of painting, somehow using everything one knows about painting materials, dreams, and feelings. Consciously and unconsciously, the artist allows what must happen to happen. That act connects you to yourself and gives you hope...The painter makes something magical, spatial, and alive on a surface that is flat and with materials that are inert. That magic is what makes paintings unique and necessary."

(Helen Frankenthaler in an interview in After Mountains and Sea: Frankenthaler 1950-1959, exh. cat., Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1998, p. 46)