Barrage

About Barrage

This contemporary colourful abstract painting is by Milly Ristvedt.

The bold and vivid colourful imagery of Milly Ristvedt has secured her rightful status as one of Canada’s finest abstract artists. After more than six decades of exploring colour and form, Ristvedt’s work now hangs in the National Gallery of Canada. Through the years, she has continually challenged herself to create expressive, meaningful work and has masterminded a unique visual dialogue.
Barrage, painted in 2014, is an inspired melange of both gestural and hard-edge imagery. Playing against a neutral backdrop, washes of lyrical brushstrokes appear to flow down the canvas, juxtaposed with several floating graphic-square shapes. The palette is fresh and modern—classic Ristvedt in vivid blue, cranberry, aubergine, melon, turquoise, pale yellow and white.

“The rhythm and flow of my paintings are the rhythm and flow of my life. The necessity is to show what I have seen, felt, understood and intuited. The latter is my grace. It’s my connection with all that is much larger than myself.” Milly Ristvedt

“The dynamic tension between order and freedom is a constant in her work due primarily, she said, to ‘my interest…in the complexity of colour and its capacity to move us.“ Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada

Milly Ristvedt was born in British Columbia and studied at the Vancouver School of Art (now the Emily Carr University). Her first solo exhibit was at the Carmen Lamanna Gallery in Toronto.
In the late 1960s, Ristvedt shared a studio with famed Canadian painter Jack Bush, met art critic Clement Greenberg and was inspired by American painters Jules Olitski and Frank Stella. Her work has been included in many publications.
She was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2004 and honoured with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. She has won seven Canada Council awards and two Ontario Arts Council awards, and has had over 50 solo exhibitions and been part of countless group shows. Ristvedt's work can be found in major public collections throughout North America.

Milly Ristvedt is represented exclusively by the Oeno Gallery.