Inside Out

About Inside Out

This large contemporary abstract painting by Milly Ristvedt is collectable.

Highly regarded as a masterful artist, Milly Ristvedt’s work now hangs in the National Gallery of Canada. For decades she pursued the idea that colour has the power to evoke emotion. Coupled with the freedom that abstraction allows, powerful stories could be told. Her intuitive almost visceral sense of colour and her lyrical expressive form were initially inspired by the avant garde work of abstract expressionists such as Canada’s Jack Bush and America’s Morris Louis. With Inside Out, created in the late seventies Ristvedt’s spontaneous brushstrokes appear to dance around the canvas grounded by bold passages of deep orange and yellow. Dashes of bright and dark green, deep purple, cranberry, burgundy, sunny yellow, red and melon appear to move around the canvas. The vivid colours pop against the gradient backdrop of black and white. Fine linear markings in bright white, red, black and green add energy as they draw the eye across the colour field.

“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

“Ristvedt’s history, replete with accomplishments and honours, still fails to prepare a viewer for the inventiveness, technical brilliance and dynamism of her canvases. The three works now part of the national collection show something of this uncommon degree of achievement.” Adam Welch, Associate Curator, Modern Art, Art Gallery of Ontario

FRAMED
61.5 x 61.5 in 156.21 x 156.21 cm

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 Olitiski 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 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.