July Grid

About July Grid

This contemporary abstract painting by Milly Ristvedt features a colourful grid pattern.

The powerful visual language of colour has seduced Milly Ristvedt, one of Canada’s important artists, for decades. Early in her career, she began to understand how colour and simple, dynamic form translate into a compelling story. This is one of a series of grid paintings that Ristvedt did during the 1990s. The grid pattern provides a ‘container,’ a structure to the work. As always, Ristvedt’s intuitive choice of colours dominates the canvas. Here, six squares are rendered in golden yellow, purple, white, black, deep blue and red. Each square has its own personality—different brushstrokes, markings, hard-edged and blurry borders distinguishing each one.

“The grid is a commonplace and omnipresent structure. The intersection of vertical and horizontal represents many things in human history. It is as old as this planet’s gravity and our attempts to stand erect on it. Its mystical associations are numerous. Repeated, these directional forces become the web that holds everything together.” Milly Ristvedt

“Ristvedt’s paintings are uncompromising in their formalism, their preoccupation with the primary elements of colour and space in art. They are cellular examinations of the visual experience of paintings, beyond image, beyond the pleasing shape.” Jeff Mahoney, the Hamilton Spectator, 1994.

Milly Ristvedt was born in British Columbia and studied at the Vancouver School of Art (now the Emily Carr University). She had her first solo exhibit 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.
Her work is found in both private and public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada.

Milly Ristvedt is represented exclusively by Oeno Gallery.