Second-generation Abstract Expressionist Helen Frankenthaler made stain paintings like Spiritualist by pouring thinned pigment onto an unstretched canvas spread on her studio floor. The paint soaked into the raw fibers of the untreated canvas, literally staining the fabric. Like other Abstract Expressionists, Frankenthaler created large-scale paintings that were affected by chance. She let her colors flow freely into shapes, manipulating them only minimally with her brush or fingers. Frankenthaler distinguished herself from her Abstract Expressionist counterparts by using a lighter palette and trading emotional intensity for a calmer, often lyrical mood.

In works like Spiritualist, the play of overlapping colors and forms creates a sense of visual space. But the weave of the canvas is always visible, which creates a tension between surface and depth. Frankenthaler reintroduced short, curving black lines, like those at the right side of Spiritualist, into her work in the early 1970s. Some scholars have attributed these lines and her move toward further abstraction to major changes in her life: a new studio, the release of the first major book on her work, and her divorce from artist Robert Motherwell.