Pearl

About Pearl

This large abstract acrylic painting by Milly Ristvedt has a pastel palette.

For more than six decades Milly Ristvedt has explored colour to express her own distinctive visual language. Lauded as a master colourist, Ristvedt often developed and mixed her own paint colours.
Pearl is a fresh, modern mix of soft pastel colours—a ‘ballet’ of intersecting brush swipes in rose pink and lavender against a peach soaked ground.
The inspired addition of turquoise, indigo, verdant green, and cerise brushstrokes topped by a black border offers dramatic contrast.
The energy in this elegant piece is palpable.

“It’s event I’m looking for in the work, not incident.” Milly Ristvedt

“She tackles the ‘central image’ aspect of Abstract Expressionism with verve, pushing brilliant colour onto the middle of the canvas but then usually gives it a hint of frame with an implied grid or confronting the ‘figure ground’ question with calligraphic brush strokes.” Marg Jackson, Explosions of colour in exhibition, The Oshawa Times

FRAMED
55.25 × 49.25 in 140.34 × 125.1 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.