This print is constructed of cut paper inked with colors that evoke a city skyline. The deep blue is punctuated by bright pinks and yellows—evidence of bright lights in a bustling metropolis—and the irregular shape evokes a silhouetted cityscape. Mary Lovelace O’Neal worked primarily as a painter until 1984, when Robert Blackburn invited her to his printmaking studio. Captivated by the print medium, she created this work at the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia in 1988.
—Excerpted from https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/62268/, accessed 6-20-2021

O’Neal has pointed to two major influences in her art making: Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. She appreciates the gestural, textural cacophony evoked by Abstract Expressionists like Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, noting how their methods allow the “intangible” aspects of human life to be expressed. She also admires the quietude of Minimalism, which offers a contrasting balance to her work. While at Skowhegan [School of Painting & Sculpture, Madison, ME] in the '60s, O’Neal first came into contact with a medium called lampblack—a type of carbon residue sometimes used as a paint pigment. Years later, she realized that by rubbing the raw pigment directly into the surface of a canvas she could use emotive physical gesturality—an ideal of Abstract Expressionism—to create total flatness, an ideal of Minimalism. Her “Lampblack'' paintings were the first to bring her wide public attention.
—Adapted from https://www.ideelart.com/magazine/mary-lovelace-o-neal, accessed 6-20-2021