Elements of Landscape

About Elements of Landscape

This contemporary abstract acrylic painting by Milly Ristvedt is a landscape defined by colour.

For more than six decades, master colourist Milly Ristvedt has experimented and explored the power of colour to evoke emotion. In doing so, she has created her own distinctive visual language that even allows colour to create ‘forms’ that suggest landscape, as in Elements of Landscape. Here, the rhythmic gestural brushstrokes change direction and animate the work. The blush, lilac, soft green and white background allows expressive strokes of deep pink, orange, turquoise, purple and contrasting black to pop.

“Whatever consistency or character there is to my work probably owes itself to the fact that my obsessions have remained remarkably stable over the years—and central to them is the idea of the artist as a transformer of energy.” Milly Ristvedt

“Towards the end of the 80s and into the 90s, the open space that both appears to generate while also containing her gestural language begins to revisit the framing devices she employed in the late 70s, now, however, pulled apart and reorganized. The result is the construction of a loose grid that both holds each colour while maximizing its vibrational potential, and despite tonal variations, the overall field has a viscous connectivity.” Yvonne Lammerich, Artist

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, including the National Gallery of Canada.

Milly Ristvedt is represented exclusively by the Oeno Gallery.