The Cutting Bell balances gestural brushwork with areas of muted color and carefully stained canvas, activating the surface itself as a key element. The title suggests both incision and alertness, echoing the painting’s quiet tension between disruption and harmony.

Heikes’s muted palette and raw textures evoke natural processes of erosion and renewal. His work sits within a renewed 21st Century abstraction focused on materiality, presence, and impermanence. His works are in dialogue with the legacies of painters like Helen Frankenthaler and Agnes Martin.

This painting invites reflection amid today’s fast paced world, offering a contemplative space that honors process and subtle shifts in color and form, similarly to April Gornik's Tropical Drift or Fred Tomaselli’s spiritual work.