Esmeralda

About Esmeralda

This contemporary abstract colourful oil painting is by Milly Ristvedt.

Glorious colour dominates the canvas in this expressive painting by one of Canada’s finest contemporary artists. Milly Ristvedt has been experimenting with the power of colour to ignite a feeling for more than six decades. This is one of her earlier works from the 1980s when she was playing with layers of colours expressed in sweeping gestural form. The sense of excitement and motion in this vividly coloured piece is palpable. Waves of crimson, deep green, pale pink, aubergine, and golden yellow with a hint of turquoise wash over the canvas.
A passage of orange—partly hard-edged adds drama and draws the viewer’s eye. Ristvedt’s distinctive palette is on full display in Esmerelda.

“I made test pieces on raw canvas to see how things might work. It takes time before you get the right feeling so that you can hit the road and get started. All of those gestural works have to be planned out very carefully, otherwise, you’re just spinning your arms in circles.” 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.