What You See

About What You See

This large colourful acrylic abstract painting is by Milly Ristvedt.

Early in her impressive decades-long career, Milly Ristvedt understood the transformational power of colour to convey a mood, add light and depth to a composition. This painting from 1980 is a fine example of Ristvedt’s use of colour to create a poetic narrative of space, light, texture and movement. Dramatic passages of sky blue and rosy pink interact on the canvas with gestural brushstrokes of yellow, black, turquoise and cerise. Fine linear markings in bright green, pink, cerise, black and dashes of electric blue create spatial tension and depth.

“My paintings are, and always have been, attempts not only to focus awareness of colour, but to put colour to use in making cohesive statements that go beyond the visual.” Milly Ristvedt

“Milly Ristvedt dreams in colour….She has watched the sun rise over the Atlantic and set over the Pacific. To paraphrase the title of the famous work by Joan Miro, Milly Ristvedt is the colour of her dreams.” Eric Devlin, artist, illustrator

FRAMED
50 × 50 in 127 × 127 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.