Marcia Hafif emerged as a painter just as critics and artists alike were claiming that all applications and experimentation in the medium had been exhausted. In her 1978 essay Beginning Again, Hafif argues against the "death of painting," asserting that abstraction had been the style of some of the 20th century's greatest artworks. Additionally, she believes painting cannot die for the reason that people perceive the physical, technical, and historical attributes of a painting differently.

In her monochromatic works, Hafif has explored the numerous formats, mediums, and mixes and how they highlight pigments in a specific application. Whereas some viewers feel that monochrome is "insufficient," Hafif states it "is open and rec...